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CONSTELLATIONS 



ORION 



TAURUS. 



Notes.— Star « in Taurus is rod, hap ei^ht metals; moves east (page 227). At o 
above tip of right horn is the Crab Nebula (page 219). In Orion, a is variable, 
has five metals; recede! 22 miles per second. /*, ft, f, f, p, etc., are donbfc 
the component parts of various colors and magnitudes (page 212, note). \ and < 

are triple; a, octuple; 0, multiple, surrounded by a fine Nebula (j 



RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY 



WITH 

DIRECTIONS FOR PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS 
AM) TELESCOPIC WORE 



BY 



HENRY WHITE WARREN, D.D. 



WITH EIGHTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS OF STARS 






< 






Mo. 



NEW FORK 

II A i; PE l: I i: ROT n i: i:s. r i i: 1. 1 s ll BBS 

fit A s K I. I \ s g V A It K 

7 '.» 






Entered according to Art of Congress, in the year l c 179, by 

II a r r e r k Brothers, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



f 



THI ¥YXHI 

THI ArAnHTHI 

ASTPAnTOYSHI 

KAI 

I2AITEAQI 



PREFACE 



All sciences are making an advance, but Astronomy 
is moving at the double-quick. Since the principles of 
this science were settled by Copernicus, four hundred 
years ago, it lias never had to beat a retreat. It is re- 
written not to correct material errors, but to incorporate 
new discoveries. 

Once Astronomy treated mostly of tides, seasons, and 

telescopic aspects of the planets; now these are only 

primary matters. Once it considered stars as mere fixed 

its of light : now it studies them as suns, determines 

thei :zc, color, movements, chemical constitution, 

volution of their planets. Once it considered 

ipty: now it knows that every cubic inch of 

it quivers with greater intensity of force than that which 

is visible in Niagara. Every inch of surface that can be 

of between Buns is more wave-tossed than the 

in in a storm. 

The invention of the telescope constituted one era in 

Astronomy; it- perfection in our day, another ; and the 

scope a third — no less impor- 
tant than either of the other-. 
While nearly all men are prevented from practical 
erimentation in these high realm.- of knowledge, few 



viii PREFACE. 

have so little leisure as to be debarred from intelligently 
enjoying the results of the investigations of others. 

This book has been written not only to reveal some 
of the highest achievements of the human mind, but 
also to let the heavens declare the glory of the Divine 
Mind. In the author's judgment, there is no gulf that 
separates science and religion, nor any conflict where 
they stand together. And it is fervently hoped that 
any one who comes to a better knowledge of God's 
works through reading this book, may thereby come t<> 
a more intimate knowledge of the Worker. 

I take great pleasure in acknowledging ray indebted- 
ness to J. M. Van Vleck, LL.D., of the U. S. Nautical 
Almanac staff, and Professor of Astronomy at the A\ r es- 
leyan University, for inspecting some of the more im- 
portant chapters; to Dr. S. S. AVhite, of Philadelphia, 
for telescopic advantages; to Prof essor Henry Draper, 
for furnishing, in advance of publication, a photograph 
of the sun's corona in 1S7S; and to the excellent work 
on " Popular Astronomy,'' by Professor Simon New- 
comb, LL.D., Professor IT. S. Naval Observatory, for 
some of the most recent information, and for the use of 
the unequalled engravings of Jupiter, Saturn, and the 
great nebula of Orion. 



CONTENTS 



cuw. PAOl 

I. CrRATIYE Proi 1 

II. CrRATIVR Pr0GRR88 16 

-tit ut ion of Light 24 

Chemistry of Sana revealed l>y Light '- ,s; 

Creative Force of Light 30 

III. ASTROHOMICAL INSTRUMENTS 41 

The Telescope 43 

The Reflecting Telescope 44 

The Spectroscope 4 G 

IV. CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS 56 

Celestial Movements , 58 

How to Measure GO 

V. Tin: Sub 7:> 

What the Sun does for as 91 

\T. Tin: PLANETS, AS BRER FROE SPACE 97 

The Out! the Earth 108 

VII. RhOOTI METEORS, AND CoMBTfl 117 

122 

126 

mu Comets 128 

usl ? 131 

Will Comets strike the Earth? 138 

VIII. Tin: PLANETS AS IVDl viit \ U 186 

Vnl 138 

L38 

139 

141 

148 



X CONTEXTS. 

CHAP. PAGE 

VIII. The Planets as Individuals — Continued. 

The Delicate Balance of Forces 144 

Tides 146 

The Moon 161 

Telescopic Appearance 155 

Eclipses 1 ."> 7 

Mars 158 

Satellites of Mars , 161 

Asteroids ir,i> 

Jupiter 164 

Satellites of Jupiter ID."* 

Saturn 167 

Kings of Saturn 160 

Satellites of Saturn 172 

Uranus 1 78 

Neptune 1 7.~> 

IX. The Nebular Hypothesis 171) 

X. The Stellar System L98 

The Open Page of the Heavens 195 

Equatorial Constellations 202 

Characteristics of the Stars 209 

Number 210 

Double and Multiple Stars 210 

Colored Stars 214 

Clusters of Stars 215 

Nebulae 'J 17 

Variable Stars 220 

Temporary, New, and Lost Stars 229 

Movemen ts of Stars 226 

XL The Worlds and the Word 229 

XII. The Ultimate Force 247 

Summary of Latest Discoveries and Conclusions 

Some Elements of the Solar System 274 

Explanation of Astronomical Symbols 275 

Signs of the Zodiac 275 

Other Abbreviations Used in the Almanac 275 

Greek Alphabet Used Indicating the Stars 275 

Chautauqua Outline for Students 276 

Glossary of Astronomical Terms and Index 279 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



FIT,. TAGE 

The Constellations of Orion and Taurus Frontispiece 

1. An Orbit resulting from Attraction and Projection 8 

2. The Moon'fl ( >rbit about the Earth 10 

3. Changes of Orbit by Mutual Attraction 11 

4. Velocity of Light measured by Jupiter's Satellites 22 

5. Velocity of Light measured by Fizeau's Toothed Wheel 23 

6. AYhite Light resolved into Colors 25 

7. Showing amount of Light received by Different Planets 37 

8. Measuring Intensities of Lights 37 

'.'. Reflection and Diffusion of Light 38 

tions 39 

11. Refraction by Water 40 

12, letion 40 

] 3. Refracting Teleeo »] >e 43 

14. Reflecting 44 

15. The Cambridge Equatorial Refractor 46 

16. The new Reflecting Telescope at Pari- 47 

17. Specti rith Battery of Prisma 49 

ring Hydrogen and of the Sun 60 

19. IDnstrating 59 

y obeenring Angles 

»;i 

i [neb (',;; 

i <;;, 

Illustrating Triangnl 66 



xii ILLUSTRATIONS. 

FIG. PAOI 

25. Measuring Distance to an Inaccessible Object i i 7 

26. Measuring Elevation of an Inaccessible Object u'7 

27. Illustrating Parallax <;:> 

28. Illustrating Stellar Parallax 71 

29. Mode of Ascertaining Longitude 7ii 

30. Relative Size of Sun, as seen from Different Planets 79 

31. Zodiacal Light 

32. Corona of the Sun in 1858— Brazil 

33. Corona of the Sun in 1878— Colorado 

34. Solar Prominences of Flaming Hydrogen 

35. Changes in Solar Cavities during Rotation 90 

30. Solar Spot 99 

37. Holding Telescope to sec the Sun-spots 96 

38. Orbits and Comparative Sizes of the Planets LOO 

89. Orbit of Earth, illustrating Seasons in:; 

40. Inclination of Planes of Planetary Orbits 1<»7 

41. Inclination of Orbits of Earth and Venus 107 

'42. Showing the Sun's Movement among the Stars 1 L0 

43. Passage of the Sun by Star Regains 1 1 1 

44. Apparent Path of Jupiter among the Stars Ill' 

45. Illustrating Position of Planets 1 12 

46. Apparent Movements of an Inferior Planet 118 

47. Apparent Movements of a Superior Planet Ill 

47a. A Swarm of Meteors meeting the Earth 1 18 

48. Explosion of a Bolide 120 

49. Plight of Bolides 121 

50. The Santa Rosa Aerolite 122 

51. Orbit of November Meteors and the Comet of 18GG L26 

52. Aspects of Remarkable Comets U'7 

53. Phases and Apparent Dimensions of Venus 140 

54. The Earth and Moon in Space 142 

55. Aurora as Waving Curtains 1 U5 

56. Tide resulting from Centrifugal Motion 147 

57. Lunar Landscape 160 



ILLUSTRATIONS. xiii 

ri<». PAQ1 

E - Telescopic View of the Moon [54 

69, Illumination o( Lunar Craters and Teaks i.V> 

GO. Lunar Crater "Copernicus" 156 

61. Eclipses: Shadows of Earth and Moon 157 

62. Apparent Sizes of Mars, seen from the Earth 160 

6a Juj.iter 164 

64. Various Positions of Jupiter's Satellites 166 

65. View of Saturn and his Kings 1G8 

< '.( ;. Pert u rbat ions of Uran us 1 70 

07. Map: Cireumpolar Constellations 201 

Map of Constellations on the Meridian in December 202 

69. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in January 203 

70. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in April 204 

71. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in June 205 

72. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in September.... 200 

73. Ma}> of Constellations on the Meridian in November 207 

71. Southern Cireumpolar Constellations 208 

7">. A spects of Double Stars 213 

7»'>. Sprayed Star Cluster below »/ in Hercules 210 

77. Globular Star Cluster in the Centaur 21G 

78, Great Nebula about Ononis 218 

The Crab Nebula above gTanri 211) 

The Kin- Nebula in Lyra 220 

81. Showing Place of King Nebula 221 

82. The Horizontal Pendulum 272 



Colored Plate bkfresehtdigi Various Spectra 60 52 

Maps t<» run) mi. Stars 1/ tfn End, 



"Not to the domes, where crumbling arch and column 

Attest the feebleness of mortal hand, 
But to that fane, most catholic and solemn, 

Which God hath planned, — 
To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder. 

Whose quenchless lamps the sun and stars supply : 
Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder, 

Its dome the sky." II. W. Longfellow, 

" The heavens are a point from the pen of 1 1 is perfection ; 
The world is a rose-bud from the bower of His beaut 
The sun is a spark from the light of 1 1 is wisdom ; 
And the sky a bubble on the sea of His power." 

Sib \Y. J 



RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY. 



I. 

CREATIVE PROCESSES. 

During all the ages there has been one bright and 
glittering page of loftiest wisdom unrolled before the 
eye of man. That this page may be read in every part, 
man's whole world turns him before it. This motion 
apparently changes the eternally stable stars into a mov- 
ing panorama, but it is only so ill appearance. The 
sky is a vast, immovable dial-plate of " that clock whose 
pendulum ticks ages instead of seconds," and whose 
time 18 eternity. The moon moves among the illumi- 
nated figures, traversing the dial quickly, like a second- 
hand, once a month. The sun, like a minute-hand, goes 

t the dial once a year. Various planets stand for 
hour-hands, moving over the dial in various periods 

ching up to one hundred and sixty-tour years; while 
the earth, like a ship of exploration, sails the infinite 
azure, bearing the observers to different points where 
they may investigate the infinite problems of this 
mighty machinery. 

This dial not only shows present movements, but it 
history of uncounted ages past ready to be 



4 CREATIVE PROCESSES. 

read backward in proper order ; and it has glorious vol- 
umes of prophecy, revealing the far-off future to any 
man who is able to look thereon, break the seals, and 
read the record. Glowing stars are the alphabet of 
this lofty page. They combine to form words. Mete- 
ors, rainbows, auroras, shifting groups of stars, make 
pictures vast and significant as the armies, angels, and 
falling stars in the Revelation of St. John — changing 
and progressive pictures of infinite wisdom and power. 

Men have not yet advanced as far as those who saw 
the pictures John describes, and hence the panorama is 
not understood. That continuous speech that day af- 
ter day uttereth is not heard ; the knowledge that night 
after night showeth is not seen; and the invisible 
things of God from the creation of the world, even his 
eternal power and Godhead, clearly discoverable from 
things that are made, are not apprehended. 

The greatest triumphs of men's minds have been in 
astronomy — and ever must be. We have not learned 
its alphabet yet. We read only easy lessons, with 
many mistakes as happy gnesses. But in time we shall 
know all the letters, become familiar with the combi- 
nations, be apt at their interpretation, and will read 
with facility the lessons of wisdom and power that are 
written on the earth, blazoned in the skies, and pictured 
by the flowers below and the rainbows above. 

In order to know how worlds move and develop, we 
must create them; we must go back to their begin- 
ning, give their endowment of forces, and study the 
laws of their unfolding. This we can easily do by that 
faculty wherein man is likest his Father, a creative im- 
agination. God creates and embodies; we create, but 



FORCE 1 OF ATTRACTION. 5 

it remains in thought only. But the creation is as 
bright, strong, clear, enduring, and real, as if it were em- 
bodied. Every one of us would make worlds enough 
to crush us, if we could embody as well as create. Our 
ambition would outrun our wisdom. Let us come into 
the high and ecstatic frame of mind which Shakspeare 
calls frenzy, in the exigencies of his verse, when 

"The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; 
Ami. as imagination bodies forth 
The forma of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation ami a name." 

In the supremacy of our creative imagination let us 
make empty space, in order that we may therein build 
op a new universe. Let us wave the wand of our pow- 
er, so that all created things disappear. There is no 
world under our feet, no radiant clouds, no blazing sun, 
no >ilver moon, nor twinkling stars. We look up, there 
is no light; down, through immeasurable abysses, there 
ifl do form: all about, and there is no sound or sign 
of being — nothing save utter silence, utter darkness. It 
cannot be endured. Creation is a necessity of mind — 
even of the Divine mind. 

We will now, by imagination, create a monster world, 
every atom of which shall be dowered with the single 
vet of attraction. Every particle shall reach out. 
itfl friendly hand, and there shall be a drawing to- 
iler of every particle in existence. The laws gov- 
erning this attraction .-hall be two. When these parti- 
- are associated together, the attraction shall be in 
proportion t<> the mass. A given mass will pull twice 



6 CREATIVE PROCESSES. 

as much as one of half the size, because there is rv. 
as much to pull. And a given mass will be pulled 
twice as much as one half as large, because there is 
twice as much to be pulled. A man who weighed one 
hundred and fifty pounds on the earth might weigh a 
ton and a half on a bodv as large as the sun. That 
shall be one law 7 of attraction; and the other shall be 
that masses attract inversely as the square of distant 
between them. Absence shall affect friendships that 
have a material basis. If a body like the earth polls a 
man one hundred and fifty pounds at the surface, <>r 
four thousand miles from the centre, it will pull the 
same man one-fourth as much at twice the distal 
one-sixteenth as much at four times the distance. That 
is, he w T ill weigh by a spring balance thirty-seven and a 
half pounds at eight thousand miles from the centre. 
and nine pounds six ounces at sixteen thousand miles 
from the centre, and he will weigh or he pulled by the 
earth -^ of a pound at the distance of the moon. But 
the moon would be large enough and near enough to 
pull twenty -four pounds on the same man, 80 the earth 
could not draw him away. Thus the two laws of at- 
traction of gravitation are — 1, Gramty is proportioned 
to the quantity of matter ; and 2, Tie fora of gramty 
varies inversely as the square of tin dista/nd from the 
centre of the attracting hody. 

The original form of matter is gas. Almost a 
write comes the announcement that Mr. Lockyer has 
proved that all the so-called primary elements of mat- 
ter are only so many different sized molecules of one 
original substance — hydrogen. Whether that is true 
or not, let us now create all the hydrogen we can 



FORCE OF ATTRACTION. 7 

imagine, either in differently sized masses or in com- 
bination with other substances. There it is ! We can- 
not measure its bulk ; we cannot lly around it in any 
recordable eons of time. It has boundaries, to be sure, 
for we are finite, but we cannot measure them. Let it 
alone, now ; leave it to itself. What follows i It is 
dowered simply with attraction. The vast mass begins 
to shrink, the outer portions are drawn inward. They 
rush and swirl in vast cyclones, thousands of miles in 
extent. The centre grows compact, heat is evolved by 
impact, as will be explained in Chapter II. Dull red 
liirht begins to look like coming dawn. Centuries go 
by; contraction goes on; light blazes in insufferable 
brightness ; tornadoes, whirlpools, and tempests scarcely 
signify anything as applied to such tumultuous tossing. 

There hangs the only world in existence ; it hangs in 
empty space. It has no tendency to rise ; none to fall ; 
none to move at all in any direction. It seethes and 
flames, and holds itself together by attractive power, and 
that is all the force with which we have endowed it. 

Leave it there alone, and withdraw millions of miles 
into space : it looks smaller and smaller. We lose sight 
of those distinctive spires of flame, those terrible move- 
ments. It only gives an even effulgence, a steady un- 
flickering light. Turn one quarter round. Still we see 
our world, but it is at one side. 

Now in front, in the utter darkness, suddenly create 
another world of the .-aim* size, ;uid at the same distance 
from you. There they stand — two huge, lone bodies, in 
empty space. Bnt we created them dowered with at- 
traction. Each instantly feels the drawing influence of 
other. They are mutually attractive, and begin to 



8 



CREATIVE PROCESSES. 



move toward each other. They hasten along an unde- 
viating straight line. Their speed quickens at every 
mile. The attraction increases every moment. They 
fly swift as thought. They dash their flaming, seething 
foreheads together. 

And now we have one world again. It is t\vi< •• 
large as before, that is all the difference. There is no 
variety, neither any motion ; just simple flame, and noth- 
ing to be warmed thereby. Are our creative pow< 
exhausted by this effort i 

No, we will create another world, and add another 
power to it that shall keep them apart. That power 




C J) 

Fig. 1. — Orbit A D, resulting from attraction, A C, and projectile for < . a r>. 

shall be what is called the force of inertia, which is 
literally no power at all; it is an inability to originate 
or change motion. If a body is at rest, inertia is that 
quality by which it will forever remain so, unless acted 
upon by some force from without; and if a body is in 
motion, it will continue on at the same speed, in a 
straight line, forever, unless it is quickened, retarded, 
or turned from its path by some other force. Supp 
our newly created sun is 860,000 miles in diameter. ( J-o 
away 92,500,000 miles and create an earth eight thou- 
sand miles in diameter. It instantly feels the at- 
tractive power of the sun drawing it to itself sixty- 






FORCES OF ATTRACTION AND INERTIA, 9 

eight miles a second. Now, just as it starts, give this 
earth a push in a line at right angles with line of fall 
to the sun, that shall send it one hundred and eighty- 
nine miles a second. It obeys both forces. The result 
is that the world moves constantly forward at the same 
speed by its inertia from that first push, and attraction 
momentarily draws it from its straight line, so that the 
new world circles round the other to the starting-point. 
Continuing under the operation of both forces, the 
worlds can never come together or fly apart. 

They circle about each other as long as these forces 
endure ; for the first world does not stand still and 
the second do all the going; both revolve around the 
centre of gravity common to both. In case the worlds 
are equal in mass, they will both take the same orbit 
around a central stationary point, midway between the 
two. In case their mass be as one to eighty-one, as in 
the case of the earth and the moon, the centre of grav- 
ity around which both turn will be -^ of the distance 
from the earth's centre to the moon's centre. This 
brings the central point around which both worlds 
swing just in>ide the surface of the earth. It is like 
an apple attached by a string, and swung around the 
hand : the hand moves a little, the apple very much. 

Thus the problem of two revolving bodies is readily 
comprehended. The two bodies lie in easy beds, and 
-wing obedient to constant forces. When another body, 
however, is introduced, with its varying attraction, first 
on one and then on the other, complications are intro- 
duced that only the' ni08t masterly minds can follow. 
[ntroduce a dozen or a million bodies, and complica- 
tions arise that only Omniscien.ee can unravel. 

! 




10 CREATIVE PROCESSES. 

Let the hand swing an apple by an elastic cord. 
When the apple falls toward the earth it feels another 
force besides that derived from the hand, which greatly 
lengthens the elastic cord. To tear it away from the 
earth's attraction, and make it rise, requires additional 
force, and hence the string is lengthened; hut when it 
passes over the hand the earth attracts it downward, 
and the string is very much shortened: so the moon, 
held by an elastic cord, swings around the earth. From 
its extreme distance from the earth, at A. Fig. 2, it 
rashes with increasing Bpeed nearly a 
quarter of a million of miles toward 
the Bnn, feeling its attraction inc* 
with every mile until it reaches B; 

then it is retarded in its speed, by the 

same attraction, as it climbs hack its 
quarter of a million of miles away 
from the sun, in defiance of its pow- 
er, to C. All the while the invi.-i- 
ble elastic force of the earth is un- 
w r eariedly maintained; and though the moon's dis- 
tances vary over a range of 31,355 miles, the moon 
is always in a determinable place. A simple revolu- 
tion of one world about another in a circular orbit 
would be a problem of easy solution. It would alwa 
be at the same distance from its centre, and going with 
the same velocity. But there are over sixty causes that 
interfere with such a simple orbit in the case of the 
moon, all of which causes and their disturbances must 
be considered in calculating such a simple matter as an 
eclipse, or predicting the moon's place as the sailors' 
guide. One of the most puzzling of the irregularities 







FORCES OF ATTRACTION AND INERTIA. U 

of our night-wandering orb lias just been explained by 
Professor Hansen, of Gotha, as a curious result of the 
attraction of Venus. 

Take a single instance of the perturbations of Jupiter 
and Saturn which can be rendered evident. The times y 
of orbital revolution of Saturn and Jupiter are nearly as 
five to two. Suppose the orbits 
of the planets to be, as in Fig. 3, 
both ellipses, but not necessarily 8 y 
equally distant in all parts. The 
planets are as near as possible 
at 1,1. Drawn toward each oth- 
er by mutual attraction, Jupi- 
ter's orbit bends outward, and Fig . 3 ._c^^^ orbit by 
Saturn's becomes more nearly mutual attraction, 

straight, as shown by the dotted lines. A partial cor- 
rection of this difficulty immediately follows. As Jupi- 
ter moves on ahead of Saturn it is held back — retarded 
in its orbit by that body; and Saturn is hastened in its 
orbit by the attraction of Jupiter. Now greater speed 
means a straighter orbit. A rifle-ball flies nearer in a 
straight line than a thrown stone. A greater velocity 
given to a whirled ball pulls the elastic cord far enough 

_:ive the ball a larger orbit. Hence, being hastened, 

urn stretches out nearer its proper orbit, and, retard- 
ed, Jupiter approaches the smaller curve that is its true 
<>rbit. 

Hut if they were always to meet at this point, as they 
would if Jupiter made two revolutions to Saturn's one, 
it would be disastrous. In reality, when Saturn has 

ie around two-thirds of its orbit to 2, Jupiter will 
have gone once and two-thirds around and overtaken 



12 CREATIVE PROCESSES. 

Saturn; and they will be near again, be drawn togeth- 
er, hastened, and retarded, as before ; their next con- 
junction would be at 3, 3, etc. 

Now, if they always made their conjunction at points 
equally distant, or at thirds of their orbits, it would cause 
a series of increasing deviations; for Jupiter would 
be constantly swelling his orbit at three points, and 
Saturn increasingly contracting his orbit at the same 
points. Disaster would be easily foretold. But as their 
times of orbital revolutions are not exactly in the ratio 
of five and two, their points of conjunction slowly travel 
around the orbit, till, in a period of nine hundred years, 
the starting-point is again reached, and the perturba- 
tions have mutually corrected one 4 another. 

For example, the total attractive effect of one planet 
on the other for 4r><> years is to quicken its speed. The 
effect for the next 450 years is to retard. The place of 
Saturn, when all the retardations have accumulated for 
450 years, is one degree behind what it is computed if 
they are not considered; and 450 years later it will be 
one degree before its computed place— a perturbation 
of two degrees. When a bullet is a little heavier or 
ragged on one side, it will constantly swerve in that di- 
rection. The spiral groove in the rifle, of one turn in 
forty-five feet, turns the disturbing weight or ragged i 
from side to side — makes one error correct another, and 
so the ball flies straight to the bulFs-eye. So the place of 
Jupiter and Saturn, though further complicated by four 
moons in the case of Jupiter, and eight in the case of 
Saturn, and also by perturbations caused by other plan- 
ets, can be calculated with exceeding nicety. 

The difficulties would be greatly increased if the or- 



FORCES OF ATTRACTION AND INERTIA. \:\ 

bits of Saturn and Jupiter, instead of being 400,000,000 

miles apart, were interlaced. Yet there are the orbits 
of one hundred and ninety-two asteroids bo interlaced 
that, if they were made of wire, no one could be lifted 
without raising the whole net-work of them. Never- 
theless, all the>e swift chariots of the sky race along the 
course of their intermingling tracks as securely as if 
they were each guided by an intelligent mind. They 
ate guided by m intelligent mind and <<n almighty 
arm. 

Still more complicated is the question of the mutual 
attractions of all the planets. Lagrange has been able 
to show, by a mathematical genius that seems little short 
of omniscience in his single department of knowledge, 
that there is a discovered system of oscillations, affect- 
ing the entire planetary system, the periods of which 
are immensely long. The number of these oscillations 
is equal to that of all the planets, and their periods 
range from 50,000 to 2,000,000 years. 

Looking into the open page of the starry heavens wo 
see double stars, the constituent parts of which must re- 
volve annmd a centre common to them both, or rush to 
a common ruin. Eagerly we look to see if they revolve, 
and beholding them in the very act, we conclude, not 
groundlessly, that the same great law of gravitation 
holds good in distant stellar spaces, and that there the 
Bame sufficient mind plans, and the same sufficient 
power directs and controls all movements in harmony 
and Becurity. 

When we come to the perturbations caused by the 
mutual attraction- of the Bun, nine planets, twenty 
moons, one hundred and ninety-two asteroids, millions 



14 CREATIVE PROCESSES. 

of comets, and innumerable meteoric bodies swarming 
in space, and when we add to all these, that belong to 
one solar system, the attractions of all the systems of 
the other suns that sparkle on a brilliant winter night, 
we are compelled to say, " As high as the heavens are 
above the earth, so high above our thoughts and v 
must be the thoughts and ways of Him who compre- 
hends and directs them all." 



II. 

CREATIVE PROGRESS. 

"And God said. Let there be light, and there was light." — GenesU 
"God is light."—l John, i., 5. 



11 Hail ! holy light, offspring of Heaven first born. 
Or of the eternal, co-eternal beam, 
May I express thee unblamed? Bince <i<»d is light, 
And never but in unapproached light 

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee. 
Bright eilluenee of bright essence inuv.tte." 

ftflLTOH. 

i% A million torches lighted by Thy hand 
Wander unwearied through the blue abyss i 
They own Thy power, accomplish Thy command, 

All gay with life, all eloquent with bliss. 

What shall we call them ? Tiles of crystal light— 

A glorious company of golden Btreams — 

Lamps of celestial ether burning blight — 
Sun< lighting systems with their joyous beam-? 
Bnt Thou to these art us the noon to night." 

1)i:i:ziia\ in. trans, by Bowriho. 



FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM 17 



II. 
CREATIVE PROGRESS. 

Worlds would be very imperfect and useless when 
simply endowed with attraction and inertia, if no time 
were allowed for these forces to work out their legiti- 
mate results. We want something more than swirling 
seas of attracted gases, something more than compacted 
rocks. We look for soil, verdure, a paradise of beauty, 
animal life, and immortal minds. Let us go on with 
the proc 

Light is the child of force, and the child, like its fa- 
ther, is full of power. AYe dowered our created world 
with hut a single quality — a force of attraction. It not 
only had attraction for its own material substance, hut 
r nut an all-pervasive attraction into space. By the 
force of condensation it flamed like a sun. and not only 
lighted its own substance, hut it filled all space with 
the luminous outgoing- of its power. A world may he 
limited, but its influence cannot; its body may have 
bounds, hut its soul is infinite. Everywhere is it> inani- 
mation a- real, power as effective, presence as actual, 
it the central point, lie that Btudies ponderable 
- not studying the universe, only its skei- 
'i. Skeletons are Bomewhat interesting in themseli es, 
but far more so when covered with flesh, flushed with 
beauty, and inspired \\ ith bouI. 'lie- universe ha- bones, 



18 CREATIVE PROGRESS 

flesh, beauty, soul, and all is one. It can be understood 
only by a study of all its parts, and by tracing effect to 
cause. 

But how can condensation cause light i Power can- 
not be quiet. The mighty locomotive trembles with itfl 
own energy. A smitten piece of iron has all its infini- 
tesimal atoms set in vehement commotion; they Bill 
back and forth among themselves, like the waves of a 
storm-blown lake. Heat La a mode of motion. A In 
ed body commences a vigorous vibration among its par- 
ticles, and communicates these vibrations to the sur- 
rounding air and ether. When these vibrations reach 
396,000,000,1 mm >,<>()(> per second, the human eve. fitted 
to be affected by that number, discerns the emitted un- 
dulations, and the object seems to glow with a dull red 
light; becoming hotter, the vibrations increase in rabid- 
ity. When they reach 765,000,000,000,000 per second 
the color becomes violet, and the eye can observe them 
no farther. Between these numbers are those <>f differ- 
ent rapidities, which affect the eve — as orange, yellow, 
green, blue, indigo, in an almost infinite number of 
shades — according to the sensitiveness of the i 

We now see how our dark immensity of attractive 
atoms can become luminous. A force of compression 
results in vibrations within, communicated to the ether, 
discerned by the eye. Illustrations are numerous. Tf 
we suddenly push a piston into a cylinder of brass, the 
force produces heat enough to set fire to an inflam- 
mable substance within. Strike a half -inch cube of 
iron a moderate blow and it becomes warm ; a sufficient 
blow, and its vibrations become quick enough to be seen 
— it is red-hot. Attach a thermometer to an extend ed 



FOHC£S OF THE SUNBEAM. 12 

arm of a whirling wheel; drive it against the air rive 
hundred feet per second, the mercury ri>e> 16°, The 
earth goes 98,000 feet per second, or one thousand miles 
a minute. If it come to an aerolite or mass of metallic 
rock, or even a cloudlet of gas, standing still in space, 
its contact with our air evolves 000,000° of heat. And 
when the meteor comes toward the world twenty -six 
miles a second, the heat would become proportionally 
greater if the meteor could abide it, and not be con- 
sumed in fervent heat. It vanishes almost as soon as 
seen. If there were meteoric masses enough lying in 
our path, our sky would blaze with myriads of flashes 
of light. Enough have been seen to enable a person 
to read by them at night. If a sufficient number were 
present, we should miss their individual flashes as they 
blend their separate fires in one sea of insufferable glory. 
The sun is 1,300,000 times as large as our planet ; its 
attraction proportionally greater ; the aerolites more 
numerous; and hence an infinite hail of stones, small 
masses and little worlds, makes ceaseless trails of light, 
whose individuality is lost in one dazzling sea of glory. 
On the 1st day of September, 1S50, two astronomers, 
independently of each other, saw a sudden brightening 
on the surface of the sun. Probably two large meteoric 
masses were travelling side by side at two or three hun- 
dred miles per second, and striking the sun's atmos- 
phere, suddenly blazed into light bright enough to be 

u on the intolerable light of the photosphere ac 

background. The earth responded to this now cause 

brilliance and heat in the hid. Vivid aurora- ap- 

, not only at the north and south polo, but even 

where such spectacles are seldom Been. The electro- 



20 CREATIVE PROGRESS 

magnetic disturbances were more distinctly marked. 
" In many places the telegraphic wires struck work. In 
Washington and Philadelphia the electric signalmen re- 
ceived severe electric shocks; at a station in Norway 
the telegraphic apparatus was set fire to; and at Boston 
a flame of fire followed the pen of Bain's electric tele- 
graph." There is the best of reason for believing that 
a continuous succession of such bodies might have gone 
far toward rendering the earth uncomfortable as a p] 
of residence. 

Of course, the same result of heat and light would 
follow from compression, it' a body had the power of 
contraction in itself. We endowed every particle of our 
gas, myriads of miles in extent, with an attraction for 
every other particle. It immediately compressed itself 
into a light-giving body, which flamed out through the 
interstellar spaces, flashing all the celestial regions with 
exuberant light. 

But heat exerts a repellent force among particles, and 
soon an equilibrium is reached, for there comes a time 
when the contracting body can contract no farther. But 
heat and light radiate away into cold Bpace, then contr 
tion goes on evolving more light, and so the snns flame 
on through the millions of year- unquenched. It is 
timated that the contraction of our sun, from filling im- 
mensity of space to its present size, could not afford 
heat enough to last more than 18,000,000 years, and 
that its contraction from its present density (that of 
a swamp) to such rock as that of which our earth is 
composed, could supply heat enough for 17,000,000 
years longer. But the far-seeing mind of man knows 
a time must come when the present force of attraction 



FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM. 2J 

shall have produced all the heat it can, and a new force 
of attraction must be added, or the sun itself will be- 
come cold as a cinder, dead as a burned-out char. 

Since light and heat are the product of such enor- 
mous cosmic forces, they must partake of their nature, 
and be force. So they are. The sun has long arms, 
and they are full of unconquerable strength ninety-two 
millions, or any other number of millions, of miles 
away. All this light and heat comes through space 
that is 200° below zero, through utter darkness, and ap- 
pears only on the earth. So the gas is darkness in the 
underground pipes, but light at the burner. So the 
electric power is unfelt by the cable in the bosom of the 
deep, but is expressive of thought and feeling at the 
end. Having found the cause of light, we will com- 
mence a study of its qualities and powers. 

Light is the astronomers necessity. When the sub- 
lime word was uttered, "Let there be light !" the study 
of astronomy was made possible. Man can gather but 
little of it with his eye: so he takes a lens twenty-six 
inches in diameter, and bends all the light that passes 
through it to a focus, then magnifies the image and 
takes it into his eye. Or he takes a mirror, >ix feet in 
diameter, so hollowed in the middle as to reflect all the 
rays falling upon it to one point, and makes this larger 
• till his own with light. By this larger light-gath- 
ering he discerns things for which the light falling 
his pupil one-fifth of an inch in diameter would not 
sufficient. We never have Been any sun <>r stars; 
we have only seen the light that left them fifty min- 
a or years ago, more or less. Light is the aerial 
>prite that carries our measuring-rode the infinite 



22 



CREATIVE PROGRESS. 



spaces; light spreads out the history of that far-off be- 
ginning ; brings us the measure of stars a thousand tin 
brighter than our sun ; takes up into itself evidences of 
the very constitutional elements of the far-off suns, and 
spreads them at our feet. It is of such capacity that 
the Divine nature, looking for an expression of its own 
omnipotence, omniscience, and power of revelation, was 
content to say, " God is Light. M We shall need all OUT 
delicacy of analysis and measurement when we Beek to 
determine the activities of matter so tint' and near to 
spirit as light. 

We first seek the velocity of light. In Pig. 4 the 
earth is 92,500,000 miles from the Bun at E ; Jupiter 
is 480,000,000 miles from the sun at J. It has four 





^^^r — ~~~~^r~ 








h 

i 


^^*"v^ 


< 


J • - 


w 


4^=^ 


^^^ 


V 






mvj^z 











Fig. 4.— Velocity ol" Light measured by Eclipses of Jupiter's Moons. 

moons: the inner one goes around the central body 
in forty-two hours, and is eclipsed at every revolution. 
The light that went out from the sun to M ceases to be 
reflected back to the earth by the intervention of the plan- 
et Jupiter. We know to a second when these eclipses 
take place, and they can be seen with a small telescope. 
But when the earth is on the opposite side of the sun 






FOKCFS OF THE SUNBEAM 



23 



from Jupiter, at E', these eclipses at J' take place sixteen 
and a half minutes too late. What is the reason? Is 
the celestial chronometry getting deranged ? No, indeed ; 
these great worlds swing never an inch out of place, nor 
a second out of time. By going to the other side of the 
sun the earth is 181,000,000 miles farther from Jupiter, 
and the light that brings the intelligence of that eclipse 
consumes the extra time in going over the extra distance. 
Divide one by the other and we get the velocity, 185,000 
miles per second. That 
is probably correct to 
within a thousand miles. 
Methods of measurement 
by the toothed wheel of 
Fizean confirm this re- 
sult. Suppose the wheel, 
Fig. 5, to have one thou- 
sand teeth, making five 
revolutions to the second. 
Five thousand flashes of 
light each second will 
dart out. Let each flash travel nine miles to a mirror 
and return. If it goes that distance in y^^ of a sec- 
ond, or at the rate of 180,000 miles a second, the next 
tooth will have arrived before the eye, and each return- 
ing ray be cut off. Hasten the revolutions a little, and 
the next notch will then admit the ray, on its return, 
that went out of each previous notch : the eighteen 
3 having been traversed meanwhile. The method 
of measuring by means oi a revolving mirror, used by 
Paucault, is held to be even more accurate. 

Winn we take instantaneous photographs by the ex- 




Fig. 5.— Measuring the Velocity of Light. 



24 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 

posure of the sensitive plate -r-owo P ar ^ °^ a second, a 
stream of light nine miles long dashes in upon the plate 
in that very brief period of time. 

The highest velocity we can give a rifle-ball is 2000 
feet a second, the next second it is only 1500 feet, and 
soon it comes to rest. We cannot compact force enough 
behind a bit of lead to keep it flying. But light flies 
unweariedly and without diminution of speed. When 
it has come from the sun in eight minutes. Alpha (Vn- 
tauri in three years, Polaris in forty -five year.-, other 
stars in one thousand, its wings are in nowise fatigued, 
nor is the rapidity of its flight Blackened in the Least. 

It is not the transactions of to -day that we read in 
the heavens, but it is history, some of it older than the 
time of Adam. Those stars may have been smitten out 
of existence decades of centuries ago, but their poured- 
out liodit is vet flooding the heavens. 

O %J o 

It goes, both ways at once in the same place, without 
interference. We see the light reflected from the new 
moon to the earth; reflected back from the house-tops, 
fields, and waters of earth, to the moon again, and from 
the moon to us once more — three times in opposite di- 
rections, in the same place, without interference, and 
thus we see "the old moon in the arms of the new." 

Constitution of Light. 

Light was once supposed to be corpuscular, or con- 
sisting of transmitted particles. It is now known to be 
the result of undulations in ether. Reference has been 
made to the minuteness of these undulations. Their 
velocity is equally wonderful. Put a prism of g] 
into a ray of light coming into a dark room, and it is 



FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM. 



25 



instantly turned out of its course, some parts more and 
some less, according to the number of vibrations, and ap- 
pears as the seven colors on different parts of the screen. 
Fig. 6 shows the arrangement of colors, and the number 
of millions of millions of vibrations per second o\' each. 




V, 716 to 765 
I, 667 to 699 
B, 663 to 65S 
G, 562 to 610 
Y, 510 to 549 
0, 478 to 510 
R, 396 to 470 



Fig. 6.— White Light resolved into Colors. 

But the different divisions we call colors are not colors 
in themselves at all, but simply a different number of 
vibrations. Color is all in the eye. Violet has in dif- 
ferent places from 710 to 765,000,000,000,000 of vibra- 
tions per second; red has, in different places, from 396 

to 470,1 N N ». .< H N h N N > vibrations per sec< »nd. None of 

these in any sense are color, but affect the eye different- 
ly, and we call these different effects color. They are 
simply various velocities of vibration. An object, like 
■ kind of Stripe in our flag, which absorbs all kinds 

vibrations except those between 396 and 470,000,0( ><>,- 

),000,and reflects those, appears ivd to us. The field 

the Btars absorbs and destroys all bat those vil.m 

inmbering about 653,( ,000, I of ribra- 

2 



26 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 

tions per second. A color is a constant creation. light 
makes momentary color in the flag. Drake might have 
written, in the continuous present as well as in the pa 

u Freedom mingles with its gorgeous dyes 
The milky baldrick of the skies, 
And stripes its pure celestial white 
With streakings of the morning light." 

Every little pansy, tender as fancy, pearled with eva- 
nescent dew, fresh as a new creation of sunbeams, has 
power to suppress in one part of its petals all vibrations 
we call red, in another those we call yellow, and pur- 
ple, and reflect each of these in other parts of the same 
tender petal. "Pansies are for thoughts,' 3 even more 
thoughts than poor Ophelia knew. An evening cloud 
that is dense enough to absorb all the faster and weaker 
vibrations, leaving only the stronger to come through, 
will be said to be red; because the vibrations that pro- 
duce the impression we have so named are the only 
ones that have vigor enough to get through. Jt is like 
an army charging upon a fortress. Under the deadly 
fire and fearful obstruction- six-sevenths go down, but 
one-seventh comes through with the glory of victory 
upon its face. 

Light comes in undulations to the eye. as tones of 
sound to the ear. Must not light also sing \ The lowest 
tone we can hear is made by 16.5 vibrations of air per 
second ; the highest, so shrill and "fine that nothing lives 
'twixt it and silence," is made by 38,000 vibrations per 
second. Between these extremes lie eleven octaves ; C 
of the G clef having 25S| vibrations to the second, and 
its octave above 517£. Not that sound vibrations oe 



FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM 27 

at 38,000, but our organs are not fitted to hear beyond 
those limitations. If our ears were delicate enough, wo 
could hear even up to the almost infinite vibrations of 
light. In one of those semi -inspirations we find in 
Shakspeare's works, he says — 

"There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest, 
But iu his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim. 
Such harmony is in immortal souls; 
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.'' 

And that older poetry which is always highest truth 
3j %, The morning stars sing together." We miscon- 
strued another passage which we could not understand, 
and did not dare translate as it was written, till science 
crept up to a perception of the truth that had been stand- 
ing there for ages, waiting a mind that could take it 
in. Xow we read as it is written — " Thou makest the 
out-goings of the morning and evening to sing/' Were 
our senses fine enough, we could hear the separate key- 
note of every individual star. Stars differ in glory and 
in power, and so in the volume and pitch of their song. 
Were our hearing sensitive enough, we could hear not 
only the separate key-notes but the infinite swelling 
harmony of these myriad stars of the sky. as they pour 
their mighty tide of united anthems in the ear of God : 

" In reason's ear they all ivj 
And utter forth a glorious voice. 
Forever singing, as they >hine, 
The hand that made IU IB <ii\ine." 

This music is not tnonotODOHi. Btan draw near each 

rod make a light that is unapproachable by mor- 



28 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 

tals; then the music swells beyond our ability to en- 
dure. They recede far away, making a light so dim 
that the music dies away, so near to silence that only 
spirits can perceive it. No wonder God rejoices in his 
works. They pour into his ear one ceaseless tide of 
rapturous song. 

Our senses are limited — we have only five, but there 
is room for many more. Some time we shall be taken 
out of "this muddy restore of decay," do longer 
the universe through crevices of <>ur prison-house, but 
shall range through wider fields, explore deeper mys- 
teries, and discover new worlds, hints of which have 
never yet been blown across the wide Atlantic that 
rolls between them and men abiding in the fiesh. 

Chemistry of Suns revealed by Light. 

When we examine the assemblage of color.- Bpread 
from the white ray of sunlight, we do not find rod sim- 
ple red, yellow yellow, etc., but there is a vast number 
of fine microscopic lines of various Lengths, parallel — 

here near together, there far apart, always the same 
number and the same relative distance, when the same 
light and prism are used. What new alphabets to new 
realms of knowledge are these! Remember, that what 
we call colors are only various numbers of vibrations of 
ether. Remember, that every little group in the infinite 
variety of these vibrations may be affected differently 
from every other group. One number of these is bent 
by the prism to where we see what we call the violet, 
another number to the place we call red. All of the 
vibrations are destroyed when they strike a surface we 
call black. A part of them are destroyed when they 



BS 'F THE SUNBEAM. 

strike a substance we call The rest are rerlect- 

_ impression of color. 1: 

the _ f our nation all vibrations are 

: the red: in another, all but the blue. Perhaps on 
that oth r g _ - flag, not of our country but of our 

sun. the _ we call the solar spectrum, all vibi 
are destroyed where these dark lines appear. Perl. - 
this effect is not produced by the surface apon which 
the rays fall, but by some specific substance in the sun. 
This is just the truth. Light passing through vapor of 
- limn has the vibrations that would fall on two nar- 
row lines in the yellow nttei d, leaving two 
black spaces. Light passing through vapor of burning 
iron has some four hundred numl 
tioiis destroyed, leaving that number of black li:. 
but if the salt or iron be glowing gas. in the source of 
the light itself the same lines are bright instead of 
dark. 

Thus we have brought to our doors a readable rec- 
ord of the very substances composing every world hot 
ugh to shine by its own light. Thus, while our : 
ins all we have of liberty, free as the winds that b 3fl 
it, and bright as the stars that shine in it. the _ rhe 
means all that it is in constituent elements, all that 
- in condition. 

We find in our sun many >wn to i 

in the earth, and some that we had not d> 1 when 

the son wr«»te their names, or rather made their mark, 
in the spectrum. Thus, find t: 

and Alg at any | 

hydrogen, and E I in abundance. What 

look np and rec a 



30 CREATIVE PR00RE8S 

the stars whose very substance we know ! If we were 
transported thither, or beyond, we should not be alto- 
gether strangers in an unknown realm. 

But the stars differ in their constituent elements; 
every ray that flashes from them bears in its very be- 
ing proofs of what they are. Hence the eye of Omni- 
science, seeing a ray of light anywhere in the universe, 
though gone from its source a thousand years, would be 
able to tell from what orb it originally came. 

Creativi Ford qf Light. 

Just above the color vibrations of the anbraided sun- 
beam, above the violet, which ifl the highest Dumber 

our eyes can detect, is a chemical force; it work- the 
changes on the glass plate in photography; it transfig- 
ures the dark, cold soil into woody fibre, green I 

downy rose petals, luscious fruit, and far pervasive 
odor; it flushes the wide acres of the prairie with gi 
and flowers, Alls the valleys with trees, and cover.- the 
hills with corn, a single blade of which all the power 
of man could not make. 

This power is also tit and able to survive. The en- 
gineer Stephenson once asked Dr. Bnckland, " What 
is the power that drives that train?" pointing to one 
thundering by. "Well, I suppose it is one of your big 
engines." " But what drives the engine P J " Oh, very 
likely a canny Newcastle driver." u Xo, sir," said the 
engineer, "it is sunshine." The doctor was too dull to 
take it in. Let us see if we can trace such an evident 
effect to that distant cause. Ages ago the warm sun- 
shine, falling on the scarcely lifted hills of Pennsylvania, 
caused the reedy vegetation to grow along the banks of 



FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM, 31 

shallow seas, accumulated vast amounts of this vegeta- 
tion, sunk it beneath the sea, roofed it over with sand, 
compacted the sand into rock, and changed this vegeta- 
ble matter — the products of the sunshine — into coal ; 
and when it was ready, lifted it once more, all garnered 
for the use of men, roofed over with mighty mountains. 
We mine the coal, bring out the heat, raise the steam, 
drive the train, so that in the ultimate analyses it is sun- 
shine that drives the train. These creat beds of coal are 
nothing but condensed sunshine — the sun's great force, 
through ages gone, preserved for our use to-day. And 
it is so full of force that a piece of coal that will weigh 
three pounds (as big as a large pair of fists) has as much 
power in it as the average man puts into a day's work. 
Three tons of coal will pump as much water or shovel 
as much sand as the average man will pump or shovel 
in a lifetime ; so that if a man proposes to do nothing 
but work with his muscles, he had better dig three tons 
of coal and set that to do his work and then die, be- 
cause his work will be better done, and without any cost 
for the maintenance of the doer. 

me down below the color vibrations, and we shall 
find that those which are too infrequent to be visible, 
manifest as heat. Naturally there will be as many dif- 
ferent kinds of heat as tints of color, because there ifi 

it a range of numbers of vibration. It is our priv- 
ilege to sift them apart and sort them over, and find 
what kinds are beet adapted t<> our various ua 

Take an electric lamp, giving a Btrong beam of light 
i heat, and with a plano-convex lens gather it into a 
gle beam and direct it upon a thermometer, twenty 

' away, that is made of glass and filled with air. The 



32 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 

expansion or contraction of this air will indicate the 
varying amounts of heat. Watch your air-thermometer, 
on which the beam of heat is pouring, for the result. 
There is none. And yet there is a strong current of 
heat there. Put another kind of test of heat beyond 
it and it appears; coat the air-thermometer with a hit 
of black cloth, and that will absorb heat and reveal it. 
But why not at first? Because the glass Lena stops all 
the heat that can affect glass. The twenty feet of air 
absorbs all the heat that affects air, and no kind of heat 
is left to affect an instrument made of glass and air; 
but there are kinds of heat enough to affect instruments 

made of other thing 

A very strong current of heat may be sent right 
through the heart of a block of ice without melting the 
ice at all or cooling off the heat in the lea8t. It is done 
in this way: Send the beam of heat through water in 
a glass trough, and this absorbs all the heat that can 
affect water or ice, getting itself hot, and leaving all 
other kinds of heat to go through the ice beyond ; and 
appropriate tests show that as much heat comes out <>n 
the other side as goes in on this side, and it does not 
melt the ice at all. Gunpowder may be exploded by 
heat sent through ice. Dr. Kane, years ago, made this 
experiment. He was coming down from the north, 
and fell in with some Esquimaux, whom he was anx- 
ious to conciliate. He said to the old wizard of the 
tribe, " I am a wizard; I can bring the sun down out 
of the heavens with a piece of ice." That was a good 
deal to say in a country where there was so little sun. 
"So," he writes, "I took my hatchet, chipped a small 
piece of ice into the form of a double -con vex h 



FORCES OF TEE SUNBEAM. 33 

smoothed it with my warm hands, held it up to the sun, 

and, as the old man was blind, I kindly burned a blister 
on the bark of bis band to show him I could do it." 

These are simple illustrations of the various kinds of 
beat. The best furnace or stove ever invented con- 
sumes fifteen times as much fuel to produce a given 
amount of beat as the furnace in our bodies consumes 
to produce a similar amount. We lay in our supplies 
of carbon at the breakfast, dinner, and supper table, and 
keep ourselves warm by economically burning it with 
the oxygen we breathe. 

Heat associated with light has very different quali- 
ties from that which is not. Sunlight melts ice in the 
middle, bottom, and top at once. Ice in the spring-time 
is honey-combed throughout. A piece of ice set in the 
summer sunshine crumbles into separate crystals. Dark 
heat only melts the surface. 

Nearly all the heat of the sun passes through glass 
without hinderance; but take heat from white-hot plat- 
inum and only seventy-six per cent, of it goes through 
glass, twenty -four per cent, being so constituted that 
it cannot pass with facility. Of heat from copper at 
752° only six per cent, can go through glass, the other 
ninety-four per cent, being absorbed by it. 

The heat of the sunbeam goes through glass without 

any hinderance whatever. It streams into the room 

freely as if there were no glass there. But what if 

the furnace or stove heat went through glass with equal 

ality I We might as well try to heat our rooms witli 
the window-panes all out, and the blast of winter sweep- 
ing through them. 

The heat of the sun, by its intense vibrations, comes 

2* 



34 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 

to the earth dowered with a power which pierces the 
miles of our atmosphere, but if our air were as pervious 
to the heat of the earth, this heat would fly away every 
night, and our temperature would go down to 200° be- 
low zero. This heat comes with the light, and then, 
dissociated from it, the number of its vibrations lessen- 
ed, it is robbed of its power to get away, and remains 
to work its beneficent ends for our good. 

Worlds that are so distant afl to receive only 1 -^-^ of 
the heat we enjoy, may have atmospheres that retain it 
all. Indeed it is probable that Mars, that re bat 

one-quarter as much heat as the earth, has a tempera- 
ture as high as ours. The poet drew on his imagination 
when he wrote : 

" Who there inhabit must have other pow< 
Juices, and veins, and sense and lite than ours: 
One moment's cold like theirs would pierce the hone, 
Freeze the heart's Mood, and turn us all to stone." 

The power that journeys along the celestial spaces 
in the flashing sunshine is beyond our comprehension. 

It accomplishes with ease what man strives in vain to 
do with all his strength. At West Point there are some 
links of a chain that was stretched across the river to 
prevent British ships front ascending; these link- \\ 
made of two-and-a-quarter-inch iron. A powerful loco- 
motive might tug in vain at one of them and not stretch 
it the thousandth part of an inch. But the heat of a 
single gas-burner, that glows with the preserved sun- 
light of other ages, when suitably applied to the link, 
stretches it with ease; such enormous power has a little 
heat. There is a certain iron bridge across the Thames 
at London, resting on arches. The warm sunshine, act- 



FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM. 35 

ing upon the iron, stations its particles farther and far- 
ther apart. Since the bottom cannot give way the 
arches must rise in the middle. A> they become long- 
er they lift the whole bridge, and all the thundering 
locomotives and miles of goods-trains cannot bring that 
bridge down again until the power of the sunshine has 
been withdrawn. There is Bnnker Hill Monument, 
thirty-two feet square at the base, with an elevation of 
two hundred and twenty feet. The sunshine of every 
summer's day takes hold of that mighty pile of granite 
with its aerial lingers, lengthens the side affected, and 
bends the whole great mass as easily as one would bend 
a whip6tock. A few years ago we hung a plummet from 
the top of this monument to the bottom. At 9 a.m. it 
began to move toward the west ; at noon it swung 
round toward the north ; in the afternoon it went east 
of where it first was, and in the night it settled back to 
its original place. 

The sunshine says to the sea, held in the grasp of 
gravitation, " Rise from your bed ! Let millions of tons 
of water fly on the wings of the viewless air, hundreds 
of miles to the distant mountains, and pour there those 
millions of tons that shall refresh a whole continent, 
and Bliall gather in rivers fitted t<> bear the commerce 
and the navies of nations." Gravitation Bays,"] will 
hold every particle of this ocean a- near the centre of 
the earth as I can." Sunshine speaks with Its word of 
power, and Bays, " Op and away!" And in the wreath- 
i morning these myriads of tone rise in the 

. fly away hundreds of miles, and supply all the Ni- 

ippis and Amazon- of earth. The Bun 

- to the earth, wrapped in the mantle of winter, 



30 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 

"Bloom again;" and the snows melt, the ice reti; 
and vegetation breaks forth, birds sing, and spring is 
about us. 

Thus it is evident that every force is constitutional- 
ly arranged to be overcome by a higher, and all by the 
highest. Gravitation of earth naturally and legitimate- 
ly yields to the power of the sun's heat, and then the 
waters fly into the clouds. It as naturally and legiti- 
mately yields to the power of mind, and the water- of 
the Red Sea arc divided and stand " upright a> an heap." 
Water naturally bursts into flame when a bit of potas- 
sium is thrown into it, and as naturally when Elijah 
calls the right kind of tire from above. What Beemfl 
a miracle, and in contravention of law, is only the con- 
stitutional exercise of higher force over forces organ- 
ized to be swayed. If law wore perfectly rigid, there 
could be but one force; but many grades exist from 
cohesion to mind and spirit. The highest forces arc 
meant to have victory, and thus give the highest order 
and perfect n 

Across the astronomic spaces reach all these pov 
making creation a perpetual process rather than a Bingle 
act. It almost seems as if Light, in its varied capacities, 
were the embodiment of God's creative power; as if, 
having said, " Let there be light,' 1 he need do nothing 
else, but allow it to carry forward the creative processes 
to the end of time. It was Newton, one of the earliest 
and most acute investigators in this study of light, who 
said, "I seem to have wandered on the shore of Truth's 
great ocean, and to have gathered a few pebbles more 
beautiful than common ; but the vast ocean itself rolls 
before me undiscovered and unexplored." 



EXPERLVEXTS. 



37 



EXPERIMENTS WITH LIGHT. 
.V light sot in a room is soon from every place; hence light streams ia 
every possible direction. If put in the centre of a hollow sphere, every 

point of the surface will be equally illumined. If put in a sphere of 
twice the diameter, the same light will fall on all the larger surface. The 
surfaces o( spheres are as the squares of their diameters ; hence, in the 
larger sphere the surface is illumined only one -quarter as much as the 
smaller. The same is true of large and small rooms. In Fig. 7 it is ap- 




Fig. 7. 



parent that the light that falls on the first square is spread, at twice the 
distance, over the second square, which is four times as large, and at three 
times the distance over nine times the surface. The varying amount of 
light received by each planet is also shown in fractions above each world, 
the amount received by the earth being 1. 





Fig. 8.— Measuring Intensities of Lights. 

The intensity of light is easily measured. Let two lights of different 
-!ind<)\v< on the same icreen. Arrange them 

as to distance BO that both shadows shall be equally dark. Let tliem fall 

side by side, and study them carefully. Measure the re sp e cti ve distan 

Sup; j twenty inches, the other forty. Light varies as the .square 



38 



CREATIVE PROGRJ 



of the distance : the squar 
400, and the result is that 
Light can be handled, d 
a room and admit a beam 
light through the key-hole, 
that light goes in straight 
houses and trees in rows, 
tronomer projects straight 



e of 20 is 400, of 40 is 1000. Divide 1600 by 
one light is four times as bright as the other, 
irected, and bent, as well as iron bare. ] darken 
of sunlight through a shutter, or a ray of lamp- 
If there is dust in the room it will be observed 
lines. Because of this men are able to arrange 
the hunter aims his riile correctly, and t! 
lines to infinity. Take a hand-mirror, or bet- 




)iffusiou of Light 



ter, a piece of glass coated on one side with black varnish, and you can 
send your ray anywhere. By using two mirrors, or having an assistant 
and using several, you can cause a ray of light to turn as many corners 
as you please. I once saw Mr. Tyndall send a ray into a glass jar filled 
with smoke (Fig. 0). Admitting a slender ray through a small hole in a 
card over the mouth, one ray appeared ; removing the cover, the whole 
jar was luminous ; as the smoke disappeared in spots cavities of dark- 
ness appeared. Turn the same ray into a tumbler of water, it becomes 



EXPERIMENTS. 



39 



faintly visible : stir into it a teaspoonfnl of milk, then turn in the ray of 
sunlight, and it glows like a lamp, illuminating the whole room. These 

experiments show how the straight rays of the sun are diffused in every 
direction over the earth. 

Set a small light near one edge of a mirror; then, by putting the eye 
near the opposite edge, you see almost as many flames as you please from 
the multiplied reflections. How can this be accounted for? 

Into your beam of sunlight, admitted through a half-inch hole, put the 
mirror at an oblique angle ; you can arrange it so as to throw half a dozen 
bright spots on the opposite wall. 

In Fig. 10 the sunbeam enters at A, and, striking the mirror m at </, 
is partly reflected to I on the wall, and partly enters the glass, passes 




10. — ^Manifold Reflections. 

through to the silvered back at B, and is totally reflected to b, where it 
again divides, some of it going to the wall at 2, and the rest, continuing 
to make the same reflections and divisions, causes spots 3, 4, 5, etc. The 
_ 'test spot i< at No. 2, because the silvered glass at B is the best re- 
flector and has the most light. 

When the discovery of the moons of Mars was announced in l s 77, it 

also widely published that they could be seen by a minor. Of course 

this i< impossible. The point of light mistaken for the moon in this scc- 

iiy reflection was caused by holding the mirror in an oblique position. 

a >mall piece of mirror, say an inch in surface, and putting under 

it three little pellets of wax. putty, or clay, <et it on the wrist, with one of 

the pellets on the pulse. Hold the mirror steadily in the beam of light, 

and the frequency ami prominence of each pulse-beal will be indicated by 

the • ,t of light on the wall. If the operator becomes excited 

the fact will be evident t.> all obten 

in in a ba-in Big. 11;. and Bel it so that the rim will con- 

Pour in water, and the coin will appear 



40 



CREATIVE FROQliL 




to rise into sight. When light passes 
from a medium of one density to a 
medium of another, its direction is 
changed. Thus a stick in water seems 
bent. Ships below the horizon are 
sometimes seen above, because of the 
different density of the layers of air. 

Thus light coming from the interstellar spaces, and entering our atmos- 
phere, is bent down more and more by its increasing density. The effect 
is greatest when the sun or star is near the horizon, none at all in the 
zenith. This brings the object into view before it is risen. Allowance 
for this displacement is made in all delicate astronomical observations 



■Ul 







Fig. 12. — Atmospherical Refraction, 

Notice on the floor the shadow of the window-frames. The gl I 
almost every window is so bent as to turn the Bunlight aside enough to 
obliterate some of the shadows or increase their thickness. 



DECOMPOSITION OP LIGHT. 

Admit the sunbeam through a slit one inch long and one-twentieth of 
an inch wide. Pass it through a prism. Either purchase one or make it 
of three plain pieces of glass one and a half inch wide by six inches long, 
fastened together in triangular shape — fasten the edges with hot wax and 
fill it with water; then on a screen or wall you will have the colors of the 
rainbow, not merely seven but seventy, if your eyes are sharp enough. 

Take a bit of red paper that matches the red color of the spectrum. 
Move it along the line of colors toward the violet. In the orange it is 
dark, in the yellow darker, in the green and all beyond, black. That is 
because there are no more red rays to be reflected by it. So a green ob- 
ject is true to its color only in the green rays, and black elsewhere. All 
these colors may be rocombined by a second prism into white light. 



III. 

ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS. 

"The eyes of the Lord are in every place." — Proverbs xv. 3. 



"Man, having one kind of an eye given him by his Maker, • 

construct tWO oilier kind-. lie makes one that magnifies invisible obj( 

thousands of times, so thai a dull razor-edge appears as thick as three 
fingers, until the amazing beauty of color and form in infinitesimal ob- 
jects is entrancingly apparent, and he knows that G of least 
things is infinite. Then he makes the other kind tour or >i\ feet in di- 
ameter, and penetrates the immensities of space thousands of times 
yond where his natural eye can pierce, until 

ties of worlds are infinite also."-— Bishop Foots*. 



THE TELESCOPE. 43 



III. 
THE TELESCOPE. 

Frequext allusion has been made in the previous 
chapter to discovered results. It is necessary to under- 
stand more clearly the process by which such results 
have been obtained. Some astronomical instruments 
are of the simplest character, some most delicate and 
complex. When a man smokes a piece of glass, in or- 
der to see an eclipse of the sun, he makes a simple 
instrument. Ferguson, lying on his back and slipping 
beads on a string at a certain distance above his eye, 
measured the relative distances of the stars. The use 
of more complex instruments commenced when Galileo 
applied the telescope to the heavens. He cannot be said 
to have invented the telescope, but he certainly con- 
structed his own without a pattern, and used it to good 
purpose. It consists of a lens, O B (Fig. 13), which 



ft 



Fig. 13.— Refracting Telescope. 



3 a multiple prism to bend all the rays to one 

it at R. Place the eye there, and it receives as 

much light as if it were as large as the Ions < I II. The 

3, however, are convergent, and the point difficult to 



44 



ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS. 



find. Hence there is placed at R a concave lens, j 
ing through which the rays emerge in parallel lines, and 
are received by the eye. Opera-glasses arc made upon 
precisely this principle to-day, because they can be made 
conveniently short. 

If, instead of a concave lens at H, converting the con- 
verging rays into parallel ones, we place a convex or 
magnifying lens, the minute image is enlarged as much 
as an object seems diminished when the telescope is 
reversed. This is the grand principle of the refracting 
telescope. Difficulties innumerable arise as we attempt 
to enlarge the instruments. These have been over- 
come, one after another, until it is now felt that the 
best modern telescope, with an object lens of twenty-six 
inches, has fully reached the limit of optical power. 

Tin Reflecting Tdeseopi . 

This is the only kind of instrument differing radi- 
cally from the refracting one already described. It re- 
ceives the light in a concave mirror, M I Fig. 14), which 




Fig. 14.— "Reflecting Telescope. 

reflects it to the focus F, producing the same result as 
the lens of the refracting telescope. Here a mirror 
may be placed obliquely, reflecting the image at right 
angles to the eye, outside the tube, in which case it is 
called the Newtonian telescope; or a mirror at R may 
be placed perpendicularly, and send the rays through 



THE REFLECTING TELESCOPE. 45 

an opening in the mirror at M. This form is called the 
Gregorian telescope. Or the mirror M may be slightly 
inclined to the coming rays, bo as to bring the point F 
entirely outside the tube, in which case it is called the 
Ilerschelian telescope. In either case the image may 
be magnified, as in the refracting telescope. 

Ketlecting telescopes are made of all sizes, up to the 
Cyclopean eye of the one constructed by Lord Rosse, 
which is six feet in diameter. The form of instru- 
ment to be preferred depends on the use to which it is 
to be put. The loss of light in passing through glass 
lenses is about two -tenths. The loss by reflection is 
often one-half. In view of this peculiarity and many 
others, it is held that a twenty-six-inch refractor is fully 
equal to any six-foot reflector. 

The mounting of large telescopes demands the high- 
engineering ability. The whole instrument, with 
its vast weight of a twenty-six-inch glass lens, with its 
accompanying tube and appurtenances, must be pointed 
nicely as a rifle, and held as steadily as the axis of 
the globe. To give it the required steadiness, the foun- 
dation on which it is placed is sunk deep in the earth, 
far from rail or other roads, and no part of the observ- 
atory is allowed to touch this support. When a star is 
e found, the earth swiftly rotates the telescope away 
from it. and it passes out of the field. To avoid this, 
•k-work is so arranged that the great telescope fol- 
lows the star by the hour, if required. It will take a 
;tt it- eastern rising, and hold it constantly in view 
while it climbs to the meridian and sinks in the W< 

The reflector demands still more difficult en- 

Dg. That of Lord Rosse has a metallic mirror 



46 



ASTR OXOMICAL IXSTR UMEXTS. 




Fig. 15.— Cambridge Equatorial. 

weighing six tons, a tube forty feet long, which, with 
its appurtenances, weighs seven tons more. It moves 
between two walls only 10° east and west. The new 
Paris reflector (Fig. 16) has a much wider range of 
movement. 

The Spectroscope. 

A spectrum is a collection of the colors which are 
dispersed by a prism from any given light. If it is sun- 
light, it is a solar spectrum ; if the source of light is a 




Hector. 



THE SPECTROSCOPE. 



49 



star, candle, glowing metal, or gas, it is the spectrum of 
I star, candle, glowing metal, or gas. An instrument 
to Bee these spectra is called a spectroscope. Consider- 
ing the infinite variety of light, and its easy modifica- 
tion and absorption, we should expect an immense 
number of spectra. A mere prism disperses the light 

imperfectly that different orders of vibrations, per- 
ceived as colors, are mingled. No eye can tell where 
one commences or ends. Such a spectrum is said to 
be impure. What we want is that each point in the 
spectrum should be made of rays of the same number 
of vibrations. As we can let only a small beam of light 

58 through the prism, in studying celestial objects with 
a telescope and spectroscope we must, in every instance, 
contract the aperture 
of the instrument un- 
til we ^ot only a small 

,m of light. In or- 
der to have the colors 
thoroughly dispersed, 
the best instruments 
pass the beam of light 
through a series of 
prisms called a bat- 
ich one spread- 

_ farther the colore 

which the previous 

spread. In 

y.17 the ray is Been 

tteryof Plrli 
ring through the 

telescope A. which renders the rays parallel, and p 
1 through the prisms out to telescope B, where the 

:; 




50 



ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS. 



spectrum can be examined on the retina of the eye for 
a screen. In order to still farther disperse the rays, 
some batteries receive the ray from the last prism at 
upon an oblique mirror, send it up a little to another, 
which delivers it again to the prism to make its journey 
back again through them all, and come out to be ex- 
amined just above where it entered the first prism. 

Attached to the examining telescope is a diamond- 
ruled scale of glass, enabling us to fix the position of 
any line with great exactness. 

In Fig. 18 is seen, in the lower part, a spectrum of 
the sun, with about a score of its thousands of lines 



H h G FC&E DCBA 

Fig. 18.— Spectra of glowing Hydrogen and the Snn. 

made evident. In the tipper part is seen the spectrum 
of bright lines given by glowing hydrogen gas. These 
lines are given by no other known gas ; they are its 
autograph. It is readily observed that they precisely 
correspond with certain dark lines in the solar spec- 
trum. Hence we easily know that a glowing gas gives 
the same bright lines that it absorbs from the light of 
another source passing through it — that is, glowing 
gas gives out the same rays of light that it absorbs 
when it is not glowing. 

The subject becomes clearer by a study of the chro- 
molithic plate. No. 1 represents the solar spectrum, 
with a few of its lines on an accurately graduated scale. 






THE SPECTROSCOPE. 51 

Xo. 3 shows the bright line of glowing sodium, and, 
corresponding to a dark line in the solar spectrum, shows 
the presence of salt in that body. No. 2 shows that 
potassium has some violet rays, but not all ; and there 
being no dark line to correspond in the solar spectrum, 
we infer its absence from the sun. No. shows the 
numerous lines and bands of barium — several red, 
orange, yellow, and four are very bright green ones. 
The lines given by any volatilized substances are al- 
ways in the same place on the scale. 

A patient study of these signs of substances reveals 
richer results than a study of the cuniform characters 
engraved on Assyrian slabs; for one is the handwri- 
ting of men, the other the handwriting of God. 

( hie of the most difficult and delicate problems solved 
by the spectroscope is the approach or departure of a 
light-giving body in the line of sight. Stand before a 
locomotive a mile away, you cannot tell whether it ap- 
proaches or recedes, yet it will dash by in a minute. 
Bow can the movements of the stars be comprehended 
when they are at such an immeasurable distance? 

It can be>t be illustrated by music. The note C of 
the G clef is made by two hundred and fifty-seven vi- 
brations of air per second. Twice as many vibrations 
ond would give us the note C an octave above. 
Bound travels at the rate of three hundred and sixty- 
four yards per second. If the source of these two hun- 
ad fifty -seven vibrations could approach us at 
three hundred and sixty-four yards per second, it is ob- 
that twice as many waves would be put into a 
given space, and we should hear the upper when only 
waves enough were made for the lower C. The same 



52 ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS. 

result would appear if we carried our ear toward the 
sound fast enough to take up twice as many valves as 
though Ave stood still. This is apparent to every ob- 
server in a railway train. The whistle of an approach- 
ing locomotive gives one tone ; it passes, and we in- 
stantly detect another. Let two trains, running at a 
speed of thirty-six yards a second, approach each oth- 
er. Let the whistle of one sound the note E, three 
hundred and twenty -three vibrations per second. It 
will be heard on the other as the note (t, three hun- 
dred and eighty-eight vibrations per Becond; for the 
speed of each train crowds the vibrations into one-tenth 
less room, adding 32+ vibrations per Becond, making 
three hundred and eighty-eight in all. The train- p 
The vibrations are put into one -tenth more Bpace by 
the whistle making them, and the other train allows 
only nine-tenths of what there are to overtake the ear. 
Each subtracts 32+ vibrations from three hundred and 
twenty-three, leaving only two hundred and fifty-eight, 
which is the note C. Yet the note E was constantly 
uttered. 

If a source of light approach or depart, it will h;r 
similar effect on the light waves. How shall we detect 
it? If a star approach us, it puts a greater number of 
waves into an inch, and shortens their length. If it re- 
cedes, it increases the length of the wave — puts a less 
number into an inch. If a body giving only the num- 
ber of vibrations we call green were to approach suf- 
ficiently fast, it would crowd in vibrations enough to 
appear what we call blue, indigo, or even violet, accord- 
ing to its speed. If it receded sufficiently fast, it would 
leave behind it only vibrations enough to fill up the 




1. Solar Spectrum 

2. Spectrum of Potassium 



3 Speetrj 

4 .Spectr- 

Sarper i. 



F G 




H 


Hi 


\* ' 1 Zj cillilllllllllllllilll^CIill M fi ll'illrllmllillml 


150 

llillllill 


160 
1 III illlll 


, 17C 

ilim! 




1 ; ' T& 


" 




9 3 100 ( 110 120 130 140 


m 

150 

liiiihiii 


160 
lllllll II 


1 

170 
II (III 


. 


| 




o 


1 






L 


; . ■■ ■'• 


1 








ft 






1- 90 100 110 120 130 HO 

1 1 i 1 1 1 . 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ! 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I 1 1 1 1 1 '!* 1 1 I 1 1 ! 1 ' 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 t ' l 1 


150 


160 


no 


I 1 1 1 1 1 1 II 1 1 1 1 II ! M 1 II ' 1 ! I i 1 1 1 1 1 ' i 1 ! I ' I I 1 1 I 1 I M 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 i 1 1 1 i 1 


1 1 M 1 : 1 : 1 1 


1 ! 1 1 1 1 M 1 


1 ! MM 


'*!*L. _^S^'f jjfrjlfrSSSFtF* »*' '- '*' JSfaMJwMBgHOtgW 






1 


• . - 








1 9» 100 110 120 130 140 

mii iRiii ; i ii 1 ilmilniili'ii 1 ii ill ii ii t iiliil n i. in h 1 1 1 1 1 i 


150 


160 

> i ; ' i ; 1 1 1 


i 170 

ll ..,1 

4? 


d 

100 HO 120 130 140 


150 


160 


1 170 


III II ll 1 1 III 1 1 . 1 1 I I'M II 1 III II Ifl I 1 1 ll M 1 1 ||{ | 


Hiililiil 




lllllll 

5 


9D 100 110 120 130 140 

IHlli illlll 1 1 •' > MfflllL i ■ t : . ! i 1 i i i. Ii i i ili in h , i . . 

1 1 


150 
. ..I....I 


160 
, ,|,l, 

! 


no 
1 ,,.| 

6 

1 


f Sodium 5 Spectrum of Calcium 









| Strontium 



6 Sjp rf Barium 



THE SPECTROSCOPE, 53 

space with what we call yellow, orange, or red, accord- 
ing to its speed ; yet it would be green, and green only, 
all the time. But how detect the change? If red waves 
are shortened they become orange in color; and from 
below the red other rays, too far apart to be seen by the 
eye, being shortened, become visible as red, and we can- 
not know that anything has taken place. So, if a star 
recedes fast enough, violet vibrations being lengthened 
become indigo ; and from above the violet other rays, 
too short to be seen, become lengthened into visible vio- 
let, and we can detect no movement of the colors. The 
dark lines of the spectrum are the cutting out of rays 
of definite wave-lengths. If the color spectrum moves 
away, they move with it, and away from their proper 
place in the ordinary spectrum. If, then, we find them 
toward the red end, the star is receding; if toward the 
violet end, it is approaching. Turn the instrument on 
the centre of the sun. The dark lines take their appro- 
priate place, and are recognized on the ruled scale. Turn 
it on one edge, that is approaching ns one and a quarter 
miles a second by the revolution of the sun on its axis, 
the spectral lines move toward the violet end ; turn the 
spectroscope toward the other edge of the sun, it is re- 
ceding from ns one and a quarter miles a second by 
reason of the axial revolution, and the spectral lines 
move toward the red end. Turn it near the spots, and 
it reveals the mighty up -rush in one place and the 
down-rush in another of one hundred miles a second. 
We speak of it as an ea>y matter, but it is a problem of 
the at delicacy, almost driving tin; mind of man 

to read the movements of matter. 

I- should bo recognized that Professor Foung, of 



54 ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS. 

Princeton, is the most successful operator in this recent 
realm of science. He already proposes to correct the 
former estimate of the sun's axial revolutions, derived 
from observing its spots, by the surer process of observ- 
ing accelerated and retarded light. 

Within a very few years this wonderful instrument, 
the spectroscope, has made amazing discoveries. In 
chemistry it reveals substances never known before : 
in analysis it is delicate to the detection of the mill- 
ionth of a grain. It is the most deft handmaid of 
chemistry, the arts, of medical science, and astronomy. 
It tells the chemical constitution of the sun, the move- 
ments taking place, the nature of comets, and nebulie. 
By the spectroscope we know that the atmospheres of 
Venus and Mars are like our own ; that those of Jupi- 
ter and Saturn are very unlike; it tells us which stars 
approach and which recede, and just how one star dif- 
fereth from another in glory and substance. 

In the near future we shall have the brilliant and 
diversely colored flowers of the Bky as well classified 
into orders and species as are the flowers of the earth. 



IV. 

CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 

"Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted 
out heaven with the span ? Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of 
the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens." — Isa.xl. 12; 
xlviii. 13. 



"Go to yon tower, where busy science plies 
Her vast antennas, feeling thro 1 the >kies ; 
That little vernier, on whose slender lines 
The midnight taper trembles as it shir- 
A silent index, tracks the planets' inarch 
In all their wanderings thro' the ethereal arch, 
Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercuiy burns, 
And marks the spot where (Jranufl returns. 

"So, till by wrong or negligence effaced, 
The living index which thy Maker traced 
Kepeats the line each starry virtue draws 
Through the wide circuit of creation's laws; 
Still tracks unchanged the everlasting ray 
Where the dark shadows of temptation stray; 
But, once defaced, forgets the orbs of light. 
And leaves thee wandering o'er the expanse of night." 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



USES OF ASTRONOMY. 57 



TV. 
CELES TIAL ME A S UBEMENTS. 

We know that astronomy lias what are called practi- 
cal uses. If a ship had been driven by Euroclydon ten 
times fourteen days and nights without sun or star ap- 
pearing, a moment's glance into the heavens from the 
heaving deck, by a very slightly educated sailor, would 
tell within one hundred yards where he was, and de- 
termine the distance and way to the nearest port. We 
know that, in all final and exact surveying, positions 
must be fixed by the stars. Earth's landmarks are un- 
certain and easily removed ; those which we get from 
the heavens are stable and exact. 

In l s T^ the United States steam -ship Enterprise 
was sent to survey the Amazon. Every night a "star 
party'' went ashore to fix the exact latitude and lon- 
gitude by observations of the stars. Our real land- 
marks are not the pillars we rear, but the stars millions 
of miles away. All our standards of time are taken 
from the stars; every railway train runs by their time 
ivoid collision : by them all factories start and stop. 
Indeed, we are ruled by the stars even more than the 
i-trologers imagined. 

Man's fine8t mechanism, highest thought, and bmad- 
M of the creative faculty have been inspired 

by miv. \<> other instruments approximate in 

delicacy those whieh explore the heavens: no other 



58 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 

system of thought can draw such vast and certain con- 
clusions from its premises. " Too low they build who 
build beneath the stars;" we should lay our foundations 
in the skies, and then build upward. 

We have been placed on the outside of this earth, in- 
stead of the inside, in order that we may look abroad. 
We are carried about, through unappreciable distance, 
at the inconceivable velocity of one thousand miles a 
minute, to give us different points of vision. The 
earth, on its softly-spinning axle, never jars enough to 
unnest a bird or wake a child ; hence the foundations 
of our observatories are firm, and our measurements ex- 
act. Whoever studies astronomy, under proper guid- 
ance and in the right spirit, grows in thought and feel- 
ing, and becomes more appreciative of the Creator. 

Celestial Movements. 

Let it not be supposed that a mastery of mathematics 
and a finished education are necessary to understand the 
results of astronomical research, it took at first the 
highest power of mind to make the discoveries that 
are now laid at the feet of the lowliest. It took sublime 
faith, courage, and the results of ages of experience in 
navigation, to enable Columbus to discover that path to 
the New World which now any little boat can follow. 
Ages of experience and genius are stored up in a loco- 
motive, but quite an unlettered man can drive it. It 
is the work of genius to render difficult matters plain, 
abstruse thoughts clear. 

A brief explanation of a few terms will make the prin- 
ciples of world inspection easily understood. Imagine 
a perfect circle thirty feet in diameter — that is, create 



USS8 OF ASTRONOMY. 



59 



one (Fig. 19). Draw through it a diameter horizontally, 
another perpendicularly. The angles 
made by the intersecting lines are each 
said to be ninety degrees, marked thus °. 
The arc of a circle included between any 
two of the lines is also 90°. Every cir- 
cle, great or small, is divided into these 
3()0°. If the sun rose in the east and 
came to the zenith at noon, it would have passed 90°. 
When it set in the west it would have traversed half the 
circle, or 180°. In Fig. 20 the angle of the lines meas- 




Fig. 19. 





Fig. 20.— Illustration of Angles. 

nred on the graduated arc is 10°. The mountain is 10° 
high, the world 10° in diameter, the comet moves 10° a 
day, the stars are 10° apart. The height of the moun- 
tain, the diameter of the world, the velocity of the 
comet, and the distance between the stars, depend on the 
distance of each from the point of sight. Every degree 
is divided into 00 minutes (marked '), and every minute 
into CO seconds (marked "). 

Imagine yourself inside a perfect sphere one hundred 
feet in diameter, with the interior surface above, around, 
and below studded with fixed bright points like stars. 
The familiar constellations of night might be blazoned 
there in due proportion. 

If this star-sprent sphere were made to revolve once 
in twenty-four hoars, all the stars would successively 



60 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENT 

pass in review. How easily we could measure distances 
between stars, from a certain fixed meridian, or the 
equator! How easily we could tell when any particular 
star would culminate ! It is as easy to take all these 
measurements when our earthly observatory i> steadi- 
ly revolved within the sphere of circumambient star-. 
Stars can be mapped as readily as the streets of a great 
city. Looking down on it in the night, one could ti 
the lines of lighted streets, and judge BOmething of its 
extent and regularity. But the few lamps of even- 
ing would suggest little of the greatness of the public 

buildings, the magnificent enterprise and commerce of 
its citizens, or the intelligence of its Bcholare. Looking 

up to the lamps of the celestial city, one can judge 
something of its extent and regularity; but they sug- 
gest little of the magnificence of the many mansions. 

Stars are reckoned as 90 many degrees, minute-, and 
seconds from each other, from the zenith, or from a giv- 
en meridian, or from the equator. Thus the Btars called 
the Pointers, in the Great Bear, are 5 apart; the near- 
est one is 29° from the Pole Star, which is &0° 56 29 
above the horizon at Philadelphia. In going to Eng- 
land you creep up toward the north end of the earth, 
till the Pole Star is 54° high. It stays near its place 
among the stars continually, 

"Of whose true-fixed and resting quality 
There is no fellow in the firmament." 

How to Measure. 

Suppose a telescope, fixed to a mural circle, to revolve 
on an axis, as in Fig. 21 ; point it horizontally at a star ; 



USES OF ASTRONOMY. 



Gl 



turn it up perpendicular to another star. Of course 
the two stars are 00° apart, and the graduated scale, 
which is attached to the outer edge of the circle, shows 
a revolution of a quarter circle, or 90°. But a perfect 
accuracy of measurement must be sought; for to mis- 
take the breadth of a hair, seen at the distance of one 
hundred and twenty-live feet, would cause an error of 
00 miles at the distance of the sun, and ira- 




Fi_ r . •-'!.— Mural Circle. 



mensely more at the distance of the stars. The cor- 
rection of an inaccuracy of no greater magnitude than 
that has reduced our estimate of the distance <>f our 
Mm 3,000,000 miles. 

odder the nicety of the work. Suppose the grad- 
uate to be thirty feet in circumference. Divided 
int<> 360 . each would be one inch long. Divide each 
■h one is ,-/,, of an inch long. It takes 
iiscern it. Hut each minute must be 



62 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 

divided into 60", and these must not only be noted, but 
even tenths and hundredths of seconds must be discern- 
ed. Of course they are not seen by the naked eye; 
some mechanical contrivance must be called in to assist. 
A watch loses two minutes a week, and hence is unrelia- 
ble. It is taken to a watch-maker that every single sec- 
ond may be quickened tJ \ part of itself. Now tttito tt 
part of a second would be a small interval of time to 
measure, but it must be under control. If the tempera- 
ture of a summer morning rises ten or twenty degrees 
w r e scarcely notice it ; but the magnetic tastimeter meas- 
ures ^o^o of a degree. 

Come to earthly matters. In 1874, after nearly 
twenty -eight years' work, the State of Massachusetts 
opened a tunnel nearly live miles long through the 
Hoosac Mountains. In the early part of the work the 
engineers sunk a shaft near the middle 1028 feet deep. 
Then the question to be settled was where to go so as 
to meet the approaching excavations from the ea.^t and 
west. A compass could not be relied on under a moun- 
tain. The line must be mechanically lixed. A little 
divergence at the starting-point would become so great, 
miles away, that the excavations might pass each other 
without meeting; the grade must also rise toward the 
central shaft, and fall in working away from it ; but the 
lines w r ere fixed with such infinitesimal accuracy that, 
when the one going w T est from the eastern portal and 
the one going east from the shaft met in the heart of 
the mountain, the western line was only one-eighth of 
an inch too high, and three-sixteenths of an inch too far 
north. To reach this perfect result they had to trian- 
gulate from the eastern portal to distant mountain 



USES OF ASTRONOMY. 63 

peaks, and thence down the valley to the central shaft, 
and thus fix the direction of the proposed line across 
the mouth of the shaft. Plumb-lines were then drop- 
ped one thousand and twenty-eight feet, and thus the 
line at the bottom was fixed. 

Three attempts were made — in 1SG7, 1S70, and 1S72 
— to fix the exact time-distance between Greenwich and 
Washington. These three separate efforts do not differ 
one-tenth of a second. Such demonstrable results on 
earth greatly increase our confidence in similar measure- 
ments in the skies. 

A scale is frequently affixed to a pocket -rule, by 
which we can easily measure one-hundredth of an inch 
(Fig. 22). The upper and lower line is 
divided into tenths of an inch. Ob- 
serve the slanting line at the right hand. 
It leans from the perpendicular one- 
tenth of an inch, as shown by noticing 
where it reaches the top line. When 
ir roaches the second horizontal line it 
has left the perpendicular one-tenth of that tenth — that 
one-hundredth. The intersection marks -ffo of an 
inch from one end, and one-hundredth from the other. 

When division-lines, on measures of great nicety, get 

• fine to be read by the eye, we use the microscope. 
By its means we are able to count 112,000 lines ruled 
glass plate within an inch. The smallest object 
that can be seen by a keen eye makes an angle of 40", 
but by putting six microscopes on the scale of the tel- 
escope on the mural circle, we are able to reach an 
of 0".l, or i" an inch. This instru- 

ment is ased to measure the declination of stars, or an- 




G4 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS 

gular distance north or south of the equator. Thus a 
star's place in two directions is exactly fixed. When 
the telescope is mounted on two pillars instead of the 
face of a wall, it is called a transit instrument. This 
is used to determine the time of transit of a star over 
the meridian, and if the transit instrument is provided 
with a graduated circle it can also be used for the same 
purposes as the mural circle. Man's capacity to me 
ure exactly is indicated in his ascertainment of the 
length of waves of light. It is easy to measure the 
three hundred feet distance between the crests of 
storm-waves in the wide Atlantic; easy to measure the 
different wave-lengths of the different tunes of fnusical 
sounds. So men measure the lengths of the undula- 
tions of light. The shortest is of the violet light, 154.84 
ten-millionths of an inch. By the horizontal pendulum 
Professor Root has made 3^00*0000 °t an ' 1K '' 1 apparent 
The next elements of accuracy must be perfect time 
and perfect notation of time. As has been said, we 
get our time from the stars. Thus the infinite and 
heavenly dominates the finite and earthly. Clocks are 
set to the invariable sidereal time. Sidereal noon is 
when we have turned ourselves under the point where 
the sun crosses the equator in March, called the vernal 
equinox. Sidereal clocks are figured to indicate twenty- 
four hours in a day: they tick exact seconds. To map 
stars we wish to know the exact second when they cross 
the meridian, or the north and south line in the celestial 
dome above us. The telescope (Fig. 21, p. 61) swings ex- 
actly north and south. In its focus a set of tine threads 
of spider-lines is placed (Fig. 23). The telescope is set 
just high enough, so that by the rolling over of the earth 



USES OF ASTRONOMY. 



65 



* 






■A. 




\ 

V 














I 

1 x^ 










/ 



-Transit of a Star noted. 



the Btar will come into the field just above the horizon 

tal thread. The observer 

Botes the exact second and 
tenth of a second when the 
Btar readies each vertical 
thread in the instrument, 
adds together the times and 
divides by five to get the 
average, and the exact time 
ifl reached. 

But man is not reliable 
enough to observe and record 
with sufficient accuracy. Some, in their excitement, an- 
ticipate its positive passage, and some cannot get their 
slow mental machinery in motion till after it has made 
the transit. Moreover, men fall into a habit of esti- 
mating some numbers of tenths of a second oftener 

■ 

than others. It will be found that a given observer 
will say three tenths or seven tenths oftener than four 
or eight. lie is falling into ruts, and not trustworthy. 
General O. M. Mitchel, who had been director of the 
Cincinnati Observatory, once told one of his staff -offi- 

that he was late at an appointment. " Only a 
few minutes," said the officer, apologetically. "Sir," 
said the general, " where I have been accustomed to 
work, hundredths of a second are too important to be 
i." And it is to the rare genius of this astron- 
omer, and to others, that we owe the mechanical accu- 

that we now attain. The cloefc ifl made to mark its 
odfl «»n paper wrapped around a revolving cylinder. 

Under tl rver^s fingers is an electric key. This 

in touch at the instant of the transit of the 



66 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 

over each wire, and thus put his observation on the same 
line between the seconds dotted by the clock. Of course 
these distances can be measured to minute fractional 
parts of a second. 

But it has been found that it takes an appreciable 
time for every observer to get a thing into his head and 
out of his finger-ends, and it takes some observers longer 
than others. A dozen men, seeing an electric spark, are 
liable to bring down their recording marks in a dozen 
different places on the revolving paper. Hence the 
time that it takes for each man to get a thing into his 
head and out of his fingers is ascertained. This time is 
called his personal equation, and is subtracted from all 
of his observations in order to get at the true time; so 
willing are men to be exact about material matter-. 
Can it be thought that moral and spiritual matters have 
no precision? Thus distances east or west from any 
given star or meridian are secured ; those north and 
south from the equator or the zenith are as easily fixed, 
and thus we make such accurate maps of the heavens 
that any movements in the far-off* stars — so far that it 
may take centuries to render the swiftest movements 
appreciable — may at length be recognized and account- 
ed for. 

We now come to a little study of the modefl 
measuring distances. Create a perfect 
square (Fig. 24); draw a diagonal line. 
The square angles are 90°, the divided 
angles give two of 45° each. Now the 
base AB is equal to the perpendicu- 
lar *A C. Now any point — C, where a ife* 
perpendicular, A C, and a diagonal, B C, meet — will be 




USES OF ASTRONOMY. 



07 



9 



S" i 






as far from A as B is. It makes no difference if a river 

ik>ws between A and 0, and we cannot go over it ; we 

can measure its distance as easily as 

if we could. Set a table four feet by 

eight out-doors (Fig. 25) ; so arrange it 

that, looking along one end, the line 

of sight just strikes a tree the other 

side of the river. Go to the other 

end, and, looking toward the tree, you 

find the line of sight to the tree falls 

an inch from the end of the table on 

the farther side. The lines, therefore, 

approach each other one inch in every 

four feet, and will come together at a 

tree three hundred and eighty -four 

feet away. 

The next process is to measure the Fig.25.-MeasuringDis- 
height or magnitude of objects at an tances. 

ascertained distance. Put two pins in a stick half an 
inch apart (Fig. 26). Hold it up two feet from the eye, 



3 




Fig. 26.— Measuring Elevations. 



and let the upper pin fall in line with your eve and the 
top of a distant church steeple, and the lower pin in 
line with the bottom of the church and your eye. If 
the church is three-fourths of a mile away, it must be 
two feet high; if a mile away.it must be one 
hundred and ten feet high. F<>r if two lines spread 



68 CELESTIAL MEASUREMEXTS. 

one-half an inch going two feet, in going four feet they 
will spread an inch, and in going a mile, or five thou- 
sand two hundred and eighty feet, they will spread out 
one -fourth as many inches, viz., thirteen hundred and 
twenty — that is, one hundred and ten feet. Of course 
these are not exact methods of measurement, and would 
not be correct to a hair at one hundred and twenty-live 
feet, but they perfectly illustrate the true methods of 
measurement. 

Imagine a base line ten inches long. At each end 
erect a perpendicular line. If they arc carried to in- 
finity they will never meet: will be forever ten inches 
apart. But at the distance of a foot from the base line 
incline one line toward the other y^o f; IrTnro °f an iaehj 
and the lines will come together at a distance of three 
hundred miles. That new angle differs from the for- 
mer right angle almost infiniteeimally, but it may be 
measured. Its value is about three-tenths of a second. 
If we lengthen the base line from ten inches to all the 
miles we can command, of course the point of meet- 
ing will be proportionally more distant. The angle 
made by the lines where they come together will be 
obviously the same as the angle of divergence from a 
right angle at this end. That angle is called the parallax 
of any body, and is the angle that would be made by 
two lines coming from that body to the two ends of 
any conventional base, as the semi-diameter of the earth. 
That that angle would vary according to the various dis- 
tances is easily seen by Fig. 27. 

Let O P be the base. This would subtend a greater 
angle seen from star A than from star B. Let B be far 
enough away, and O P would become invisible, and B 



USES OF ASTRONOMY. 



69 



would have no parallax for that base. Thus the moon 
lias a parallax of 57" with the semi-equatorial diameter 
of the earth for a base. And the sun has a parallax 
8 . v ~> on the same base. It is not necessary to confine 
ourselves to right angles in these measurements, for the 
same principles hold true in any angles. Now, suppose 
two observers on the equator 
should look at the moon at the 
same instant. One is on the top 
pf Cotopaxi, on the west coast of 
South America, and one on the 
west coast of Africa. They are 
90° apart — half the earth's diam- 
eter between them. The one on 
topaxi sees it exactly overhead, 
at an angle of 90° with the earth's 
diameter. The one on the coast 
of Africa sees its angle with the 
ntme line to be S9° 59' 3"— that is, 
itfl parallax is 57". Try the same 
experiment on the sun farther away, as is seen in Fig. 
l'7. and its -mailer parallax is found to be only 8".85. 

It 18 not necessary for two observers to actually sta- 
tion themselves at two distant parts of the earth in 
Order to determine a parallax. If an observer could go 
in one end of the base-line t<> the other, he could 
termine both angles. Every observer is actually car- 
_ through space by two motions: one is that 
the earth's revolution of one thousand miles an hour 
tand the axis: and the other IS the movement of 
rth around the Ban of one thousand miles in a 
minute. Hence we can have the diameter not only of 




Fig. 27. 



70 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 

the earth (eight thousand miles) for a base-line, but the 
diameter of the earth's orbit (184,000,000 miles), or any 
part of it, for such a base. Two observers at the ends 
of the earth's diameter, looking at a star at the same in- 
stant, would find that it made the same angle at both 
ends; it has no parallax on so short a base. We must 
seek a longer one. Observe a certain star on the 21st 
of March; then let us traverse the realms of space for 
six months, at one thousand miles a minute. We come 
round in our orbit to a point opposite where we were 
six months ago, with L84,000,000 of miles between the 
points. Now, with this for a base-line, measure the an- 
gles of the same stars: it is the same angle. Bitting 
in my study here, I glance out of the window and de- 
cern separate bricks, in houses five hundred feet away, 
with my unaided eye; they subtend a discernible an- 
gle. But one thousand feet away I cannot distinguish 
individual bricks ; their width, being only two incl 
does not subtend an angle apprehensible to my vi>ion. 
So at these distant stars the earth's enormous orbit, if 
lying like a blazing ring in space, with the world set on 
its edge like a pearl, and the sun blazing like a diamond 
in the centre, would all shrink to a mere point. Not 
quite to a point from the nearest stars, or we should 
never be able to measure the distance of any of them. 
Professor Airy says that our orbit, seen from the near 
star, would be the same as a circle six-tenths of an inch 
in diameter seen at the distance of a mile : it would 
all be hidden by a thread one-twenty-fifth of an inch in 
diameter, held six hundred and fifty feet from the eye. 
If a straight line could be drawn from a star, Sirius in 
the east to the star Vega in the west, touching our 




USES OF ASTRONOMY. 71 

earth's orbit on one side, as T E A (Fig. 28), and a line 

were to be drawn six 

months later from the 

same stars, touching our 

earth's orbit on the oth- "^-^ 

side, as R B T,such a **** 

line would not diverge sufficiently from a straight line 
for us to detect its divergence. Numerous vain at- 
tempts had been made, up to the year 1S35, to detect 
and measure the angle of parallax by which we could 

3 ue some one or more of the stars from the inconceiv- 
able depths of space, and ascertain their distance from 
us. We are ever impelled to triumph over what is de- 
clared to be unconquerable. There are peaks in the 
Alps no man has ever climbed. They are assaulted 
every year by men zealous of more worlds to conquer. 
So these greater heights of the heavens have been as- 
saulted, till some ambitious spirits have outsoared even 
imagination by the certainties of mathematics. 

It is obvious that if one star were three times as far 
from us as another, the nearer one would seem to be 
displaced by our movement in our orbit three times as 
much as the other; so, by comparing one star witli an- 
other, we reach a ground of judgment. The ascertain- 
ment of hmgitude at sea by means of the moon affords 

_ood illustration. Along the track where the moon 
Bails, nine bright stars, four planets, and the >un have 
been selected. The nautical almanacs give the distance 
of the moon from these sive stare every hour in the 

_;it for three years In advance. The Bailor can measure 

stance at any time by his sextant. Looking from 

the world at I) (Fig.29),the distance of the moon and 



72 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 

star is A E, which is given in the almanac. Looking 
from C, the distance is only B E, which enables even the 
uneducated sailor to find the distance, C D, on the earth, 
or his distance from Greenwich. 




Fig. 20.— Mode of Ascertaining Longitude. 



So, by comparisons of the near and far stars, the ap 
proximate distance of a few of them has been deter- 
mined. The nearest one is the brightest star in the 
Centaur, never visible in our northern latitudes, which 
has a parallax of about one second. The next nearest is 
No. Gl in the Swan, or 61 Cygni, having a parallax of 
0".34. Approximate measurements have been made on 
Sirius, Capella, the Pole Star, etc., about eighteen in all. 
The distances are immense: only the swiftest Agents 
can traverse them. If our earth were suddenly to dis- 
solve its allegiance to the king of day, and attempt a 
flight to the North Star, and Bhould maintain its flight 
of one thousand miles a minute, it would fly away to- 
ward Polaris for thousands upon thousands of years, till 
a million years had passed away, before it readied that 
northern dome of the distant sky, and gave its new alle- 
giance" to another sun. The sun it had left behind it 
would gradually diminish till it was small as Arcturus, 
then small as could be discerned by the naked e 
until at last it would Anally fade out in utter darki 
long before the new sun was reached. Light can trav- 
erse the distance around our earth eight times in one 
second. It comes in eight minutes from the sun, but 
it takes three and a quarter years to come from Alpha 



USES OF ASTRONOMY, 73 

Centanri, seven and a quarter years from 61 Cygni, and 
forty-five years from the Polar Star. 

Sometimes it happens that men steer along- a lee 
shore, dependent for direction on Polaris, that light- 
house in the sky. Sometimes it has happened that 
men have traversed great swamps by night when that 
Btar was the light-house of freedom. In either ease the 
exigency of life and liberty was provided for forty-live 
years before by a Providence that is divine. 

We do not attempt to name in miles these enormous 
distances ; we must seek another yard-stick. Our astro- 
nomical unit and standard of measurement is the dis- 
tance of the earth from the sun — 92,500,000 miles. 
This is the golden reed with which we measure the 
celestial city. Thus, by laying down our astronomi- 
cal unit 226,000 times, we measure to Alpha Centanri, 
more than twenty millions of millions of miles. Donbt- 

- other suns are as far from Alpha Centanri and 
each other as that is from ours. 

Stars are not near or far according to their brightness. 
61 Cygni is a telescopic star, while Sirius, the brightest 

r in the heavens, is twice as far away from us. One 
Btar differs from another star in intrinsic glory. 

The highest testimonies to the accuracy of these ce- 

tial observations are found in the perfect predictions 

. transits of planets over the sun, occupation 

- by the moon, and those statements of the Nau- 

I Almanac that enable the sailor to know exactly 

where he is on the pathless ocean by the telling of the 

"< )n the trackless ocean this b<»<>]< is the mariner's 

trusted friend and connsellor; daily and nightly its 

3 bring safety to ships in all parts of the 

4 



7i CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 

world. It is something more than a mere book; it is 
an ever-present manifestation of the order and harmony 
of the universe." 

Another example of this wonderful accuracy is 
found in tracing the asteroids. Within 200,000,000 
or 300,000,000 miles from the sun, the one hundred 
and ninety-two minute bodies that have been already 
discovered move in paths very nearly the same — indeed 
two of them traverse the same orbit, being one hundred 
and eighty degrees apart; — they look alike, yet the i 
of man in a few observations so determines the curve 
of eacli orbit, that one is never mistaken for another. 
But astronomy has higher uses than fixing time, estab- 
lishing landmarks, and guiding the sailor. It greatly 
quickens and enlarges thought, excites a desire to know, 
leads to the utmost exactness, and ministers to adora- 
tion and love of the Maker of the innumerable suns. 



V. 

THE SUN. 

''And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, 
and the lesser light to rule the night : he made the stars also." — Gen. i. 16. 



11 It is perceived that the sun of the world, with all its essence, which is 
heat and light, flows into every tree, and into every shrub and flower, and 
into every stone, mean as well afl precious: and that every object h 
its portion from this common influx, and that the sun does not divid- 
light and heat, and dispense a part to this and a part to that. It is simi- 
lar with the sun of heaven, from which the Divine love pr< 
and the Divine wisdom as li.i, r ht ; these two flow into human mind- 
the heat and light of the sun of the world into bodien, and vivify them ac- 
cording to the quality of the minds, each of which takes from the i 
mon influx as much as is necessary." — Sm bdbkbobg. 



THE SUN 77 



THE SUN. 

Suppose we had stood on the dome of Boston Statc- 
hoQse November 9th, 1S72, on the night of the great 
conflagration, and seen the fire break out; seen the en- 
gines dash through the streets, tracking their path by 
their sparks ; seen the fire encompass a whole block, 
leap the streets on every side, surge like the billows of 
a storm-swept sea ; seen great masses of inflammable gas 
rise like dark clouds from an explosion, then take fire 
in the air, and, cut off from the fire below, float like 
argosies of flame in space. Suppose we had felt the 
wind that came surging from all points of the compass 
to fan that conflagration till it was light enough a mile 
away to see to read the finest print, hot enough to de- 
se the torrents of water that were dashed on it, 
making new fuel to feed the flame. Suppose we had 
ifi spreading fire seize on the whole city, extend 
i\ irons, and, feeding itself on the very soil, lick 
op Worcester with its tongues of flame — Albany, New 
Fork, Chicago. Sr. Louis, Cincinnati — and crossing the 
swifter than a prairie lire, making each peak of 
tin- Rocky Mountains bold ap aloft a separate torch of 
flame, and the Sierras winter with heat than they ever 
re with snow, the waters of the Pacific resolve into 
irueiit elements of oxygen and hydrogen, and 



78 -^ SOLAR SYSTEM. 

burn with unquenchable fire ! We withdraw into the 
air, and see below a world on fire. All the prisoned 
powers have burst into intensest activity. Quiet breezes 
have become furious tempests. Look around this flam- 
ing globe — on fire above, below, around — there is noth- 
ing but fire. Let it roll beneath us till Boston cornea 
round again. No ember has yet cooled, no spire of 
flame has shortened, no* surging cloud has been quiet- 
ed. Not only are the mountains still in flame, but 
other ranges burst up out of the seething sea. There ifl 
no place of rest, no place not tossing with raging flame! 
Yet all this is only a feeble figure of the great horn- 
ing sun. It is but the merest hint, a million times too 
insignificant. 

The sun appears small and quiet to us because we are 
so far away. Seen from the various planets, the rela- 
tive size of the sun appears as in Fig. 30, Looked for 
from some of the stars about us, the sun could not be 
seen at all. Indeed, seen from the earth, it is not al- 
ways the same size, because the distance is not always 
the same. If we represent the size of the sun by one 
thousand on the 23d of September or 21st of March, it 
would be represented by nine hundred and sixty-seven 
on the 1st of July, and by one thousand and thirty-four 
on the 1st of January. 

We sometimes speak of the sun as having a diameter 
of 860,000 miles. We mean that that is the extent of 
the body as seen by the eye. But that is a small part 
of its real diameter. So we say the earth has an equa- 
torial diameter of 7925£ miles, and a polar one of 7899. 
But the air is as much a part of the earth as the rocks 
are. The electric currents are as much a part of the 






THE SUM 



earth as the ores and mountains they traverse. What 
the diameter of the earth is, including these, no man can 
tell. We used to say the air extended forty-rive miles, 
but we now know that it reaches vastly farther. So of 




-Relative Size of Sun as seen from Different Planet*. 

Mm, we might almost Bay that its diameter is infi- 
nite, fur its light and heat reach beyond <>ur measure- 
I*- living, throbbing heart sends ont pulsations, 
j all space full of it> tide- of living light. 



82 



A SO LAB SYSTEM. 



hands, so that the sun was made to do his own drawing 
and give his own picture at consecutive instants. Fig. 
33 is a copy of a photograph of the corona of 1878, by 







Fig. 32.— The Corona in 1S5S, Brazil. 



Mr. Henry Draper. It showed much less changeability 

that year than common, it being very near the time of 
least sun-spot. The previous picture was taken near the 
time of maximum sun-spot. 

It was then settled that the corona consists of re- 
flected light, sent to us from dust particles or meteor- 
oids swirling in the vast seas, giving new densities and 



THE 






rarities, and hence this changeful light. Whether t: 
are there by constant projection, and fall again to the 
sun, or are held by electric influence, or by force of or- 
bital revolution, we do not know. That the corona can- 
not be in any sense an atmosphere of any continuous 
_ -, is seen from the fact that the comet of 1843, p 
ing within ' . 3 of the body of the sun, was not 

burned out of existence as a comet, nor in any percepti- 







ble _ I in it- motion. If the ran'a diameter 

aclude the corona, it will be from 1,380,000 tu 



84 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

Come closer still. At the instant of the totality of 
the eclipse red flames of most fantastic shape play aloDg 
the edge of the moon's disk. They can be seen at any 
time by the use of a proper telescope with a spectro- 
scope attached. I have seen them with great distinct- 
ness and brilliancy with the excellent eleven-inch tele- 
scope of the Wesleyan University. A description of their 
appearance is best given in the language of Professor 
Young, of Princeton College, who has made these flames 
the object of most successful study. On September 
7th, L871, he was observing a large hydrogen cloud by 
the suifs edge. This cloud was about 100,000 miles 
long, and its upper side was some 50,000 miles above the 
son's surface, the lower side some 15,000 miles. The 
whole had the appearance of being supported on pillars 
of tire, these seeming pillars being in reality hydrogen 
jets brighter and more active than the substance of the 
cloud. At half-past twelve, when Professor Young 
chanced to be called away from his observatory, there 
were no indications of any approaching change, except 
that one of the connecting stems of the southern extrem- 
ity of the cloud had grown considerably brighter and 
more curiously bent to one side; and near the base of 
another, at the northern end, a little brilliant lamp had 
developed itself, shaped much like a summer thunder- 
head. 

But when Professor Young returned, about half an 
hour later, he found that a very wonderful change had 
taken place, and that a very remarkable process was act- 
ually in progress. "The whole thing had been literally 
blown to shreds," he says, "by some inconceivable up- 
rush from beneath. In place of the quiet cloud I had 




uniug Hydrogen. 



THE HUN. ^7 

left, the air — if I may use the expression — was filled 
with the flying debris^ a mass of detached vertical fusi- 
form fragments, each from ten to thirty seconds (i. '., 

from four thousand five hundred to thirteen thousand 
five hundred miles) long, by two or three seconds (nine 
hundred to thirteen hundred and fifty miles) wide — 
brighter, and closer together where the pillars had for- 
merly stood, and rapidly ascending. When I looked, 

ie of them had already reached a height of nearly 
four minutes (100,000 miles); and while I watched 
them they arose with a motion almost perceptible to 
the eye, until, in ten minutes, the uppermost were more 
than 200,000 miles above the solar surface. This was 

•rtained by careful measurements, the mean of three 
closely accordant determinations giving 210,000 miles 

the extreme altitude attained. I am particular in 
the statement, because, so far as I know, chromato- 
Bpheric matter (red hydrogen in this case) has never 
been observed at any altitude exceeding live 
minutes, or 135,000 miles. The velocity of ascent, also 
— one hundred and sixty -seven miles per second — is 
considerably greater than anything hitherto recorded. 
1 * * As the filaments arose, they gradually faded away 
lib ssolving cloud, and at a quarter past one only 

a few filmy wisps, with some brighter streamers low 
down near the chromatosphere, remained to mark the 

But in the meanwhile the little ' thunder-head ' 

alluded to had grown and developed wonder- 
fully into a mass of rolling and ever-changing flame. 
k according t<> appearances. First, it was crowd- 

1 n, as it were, along the solar Mirt'aco: later, it 
llmost pyramidally 50,000 miles in height; then 



88 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

its summit was drawn down into long filaments and 
threads, which were most curiously rolled backward and 
forward, like the volutes of an Ionic capital, and finally 
faded away, and by half-past two had vanished like the 
other. The whole phenomenon suggested most forcibly 
the idea of an explosion under the great prominei: 
acting mainly upward, but also in all directions out- 
ward ; and then, after an interval, followed by a corre- 
sponding in-rash." 

No language can convey nor mind conceive an idea 
of the fierce commotion we here contemplate. If we 
call these movements hurricanes, we must remember 
that what we use as a figure moves but one hundred 

miles an hour, while these move one hundred miles a 
second. Such storms of lire on earth, " coming down 
upon us from the north, would, in thirty seconds after 
they had crossed the St. Lawrence, be in the Gulf 
Mexico, carrying with them the whole surface of the 
continent in a mass not simply of ruins but of glowing 
vapor, in which the vapors arising from the dissolution 
of the materials composing the cities of Boston, New 
York, and Chicago would be mixed in a single indis- 
tinguishable cloud." In the presence of these evident 
visions of an actual body in furious flame, we need hes- 
itate no longer in accepting as true the words of St. 
Peter of the time "in which the [atmospheric] heav- 
ens shall pass away with a great noise, and the ele- 
ments shall melt with fervent heat ; the earth also, and 
the works that are therein, shall be burned up/' 

This region of discontinuous flame below the corona 
is called the chromosphere. Hydrogen is the principal 
material of its upper part; iron, magnesium, and other 



THE srx. 89 

metals, some of them as yet unknown on earth, but hav- 
ing a record in the spectrum, in the denser parts below. 
If these fierce fires are a part of the sun, as they as- 
suredly are, its diameter would be from 1,000,000 to 
1,000 miles, 
us approach even nearer. TTe see a clearly recog- 
nized even disk, of equal dimensions in every direction. 
This is the photosphere. We here reach some definite- 
ly measurable data for estimating its visible size. We 
already know its distance. Its disk subtends an angle 
2 1- .6, or a little more than half a degree. Three 
hundred and sixty such suns, laid side by side, would 
:i the celestial arch from east to west with a half 
circle of light. Two lines drawn from our earth at the 
_!e mentioned would be 860,000 miles apart at the 
jtance of 92,500,000 miles. This^ then, is the diameter 
of the visible and measurable part of the sun. It would 
require one hundred and eight globes like the earth in 
a lino t<> measure the sun's diameter, and three hundred 
and thirty-nine, to be strung like the beads of a neck- 
• i encircle his waist. The sun has a volume equal 
to 1,245,000 earths, but being only one-quarter as dense, 
it has a mass of only 326,800 earths. It has seven hun- 
i times the mass of all the planets, asteroids, and 
it together. Thus it is able to control them 
all by itfi r power of attraction. 

'dug the condition of the surface of the sun 
•pinions are held. That it is hot beyond all esti- 
ta indubitable. Whether solid or gaseous we are 
Opinions differ: some incline to the first 
. others to the second ; some deem the sun corn- 
solid particles, floating in gas so condensed 



90 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

by pressure and attraction as to shine like a solid. It 
has no sensible changes of general level, but has pro- 
digious activity in spots. These spots have been the 
objects of earnest and almost hourly study on the part 
of such men as Secchi, Lockyer, Faye, Young, and oth- 
ers, for years. But it is a Inn-- way off t<> Btudy an ob- 
ject. No telescope brings it nearer than 200,000 mi 
Theory after theory has been advanced, each one satis- 
factory in some points, none in all. The facts about the 
spots are these: They are m06t abundant on the two 
.sides of the equator. They are gregarious, depressed 

below the surface, of vast extent, black in the centre, 

usually surrounded by a region of partial darkness, be- 

vond which is excessive light. Thev have motion of 
their own over the surface — motion rotating about an 
axis, upward and downward about the edges. They 
change their apparent shape as the Bun carries them 



Fi£. 35.— Change in Spots as rotated across the Disk, showing Cavities. 

across its disk by axial revolution, being narrow as they 
present their edges to us, and rounder as we look per- 
pendicularly into them (Fig. 35). 

These spots are also very variable in number, some- 
times there being none for nearly two hundred days, and 
again whole years during which the sun is never with- 
out them. The period from minimum to maximum 



THE SCX. 91 

of spots is about eleven years. We might look for 
them again and again in vain this year (1878), They 
will be most numerous in 1882 and 1893. The cause 
of this periodicity was inferred to be the near approach 
of the enormous planet Jupiter, causing disturbance by 
its attraction. But the periods do not correspond, and 
the cause is the result of some law of solar action to us 
as yet unknown. 

These spots may be seen with almost any telescope, 
the eye being protected by deeply colored glasses. 

Until within one hundred years they were supposed 
to be islands of scoriae floating in the sea of molten 
matter. But they were depressed below the surface, 
and showed a notch when on the edge. Wilson origi- 
nated and Herschel developed the theory that the sun's 
real body was dark, cool, and habitable, and that the 
photosphere was a luminous stratum at a distance from 
the real body, with openings showing the dark spots 
below. Such a sun would have cooled off in a week, 
but would previously have annihilated all life below. 

The solar spots being most abundant on the two 

e8 of the equator, indicates their cyclonic character; 
the centre of a cyclone is rarefied, and therefore colder, 
and cold on the sun is darkness. M. Faye says: "Like 
our cyclones, they are descending, as I have proved by 

special study of these terrestrial phenomena. They 

rry down into the depths of the solar mass the cooler 
materials of the upper layers, formed principally of 
hydrogen, and thus produce in their centre a decided 

tinction of light and heat as long as the gyratory 
movement continues. Finally, the hydrogen set free 
at the base of the whirlpool becomes reheated at this 



92 



A SOLAR SYSTEM. 



great depth, and rises up tumultuously around the whirl- 
pool, forming irregular jets, which appear above the 
chromosphere. These jets constitute the protuberances. 
The whirlpools of the sun, like those on the earth, are 
of all dimensions, from the scarcely visible pores to the 
enormous spots which we see from time to time. They 




Fig. 36.— Solar Spot, by Langley. 

have, like those of the earth, a marked tendency, first to 
increase and then to break up, and thus form a row of 
spots extending along the same parallel/' 

A spot of 20,000 miles diameter is quite small; there 
was one 14,816 miles across, visible to the naked e 
for a week in 1813. This particular sun-spot somewhat 



THE SUN, 93 

helped the Millerites. On tlie day of the eclipse, in 
1858, a spot over 107,000 miles in extent was clearly 
:i. In such vast tempests, if there were ships built 
as large as the whole earth, they would be tossed like 
autumn leaves in an ocean storm. 

The revolution of the sun carries a spot across its 
face in about fourteen days. After a lapse of as 
much more time, they often reappear on the other side, 
changed but recognizable. They often break out or 
disappear under the eye of the observer. They divide 
like a piece of ice dropped on a frozen pond, the pieces 
sliding off in every direction, or combine like separate 
lloes driven together into a pack. Sometimes a spot 
will last for more than two hundred days, recognizable 
through six or eight revolutions. Sometimes a spot 
will last only half an hour. 

The velocities indicated by these movements are in- 
credible. An up-rash and down-rush at the sides has 
been measured of twenty miles a second ; a side-rush or 
whirl, of one hundred and twenty miles a second. These 
tempests rage from a few days to half a year, traversing 
Jons so wide that our Indian Ocean, the realm of 
rm8j is too small to be used for comparison; then, 
they cease, the advancing sides of the spots approach 
each other at the rate of 20,000 miles an hour; they 
tlier, and the rising spray of fire leaps thou- 
<>f miles into space. It falls again into the in- 
candescent surge, rolls over mountains as the sea over 
bbles, and all this for e<>;i after con without sign of 
haustion or diminution. All these Bwift succeeding 
Himalayas of fire, where one hundred worlds could be 
buried, do not usually prevent the sun's appearing to 

our far-off ( '. perfect sphere. 



94 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

What the Sim does for us. 

To what end does this enormous power, this central 
source of power, exist? That it could keep all these 
gigantic forces within itself could not be expected. It 
is in a system where every atom is made to affect every 
other atom, and every world to influence every other. 
The Author of all lives only to do good, to send rain 
on the just and unjust, to cause his sun t<> rise Oil the 
evil and the good, and to give his spirit, like a per] 
ually widening river, to every man to profit withal. 

The sun reaches his anrelaxing hand of gravitation 
to every other world at every instant. The tendency 
of every world is to fly oil in a straight line. This ten- 
dency must be momentarily curbed, and the planet held 
in its true curve about the sun. These giant worlds 
must be perfectly handled. Their speed, amounting to 
seventy times as fast as that of a rifle-ball, must be 
managed. Each and every world may be said to be 
lifted momentarily and swung perpetually at arm's- 
length by the power of the sun. 

The sun warms us. It would convey but a small 
idea of the truth to state how many hundreds of mill- 
ions of cubic miles of ice could be hailed at the sun 
every second without affecting its heat ; but, if any 
one has any curiosity to know, it is 287,200,000 cubic 
miles of ice per second. 

We journey through space which has a temperature 
of 200° below zero ; but we live, as it were, in a con- 
servatory, in the midst of perpetual winter. We are 
roofed over by the air that treasures the heat, floored 
under by strata both absorptive and retentive of heat. 



THE SUN. 95 

and between the earth and air violets grow and grains 
ripen. The sun has a strange chemical power. It 
kisses the cold earth, and it blushes with flowers and 
matures the fruit and grain. We are feeble creatures, 
and the sun gives us force. By it the light winds move 
one-eighth of a mile an hour, the storm fifty miles, the 
hurricane one hundred. The force is as the square of 
the velocity. It is by means of the sun that the mer- 
chant's white-sailed ships are blown safely home. So 
the sun carries off the miasma of the marsh, the pollu- 
tion of cities, and then sends the winds to wash and 
cleanse themselves in the sea-spray. The water-falls of 
the earth turn machinery, and make Lowells and Man- 
chester possible, because the sun lifted all that water 
to the hills. 

Intermingled with these currents of air are the cur- 
rents of electric power, all derived from the sun. These 
have shown their swiftness and willingness to serve 
man. The sun's constant force displayed on the earth 

equal to 543,000,000,000 engines of 400-horse power 
each, working day and night; and yet the earth receives 
on l v iii5oouuuuu o P ai 't °f the whole force of the sun. 

Besides all this, the sun, with provident care, lias 
made and given to us coal. This omnipotent worker 
has stored away in past ages an inexhaustible reservoir 
of his power which man may easily mine and direct, 
thus releasing himself from absorbing toil. 

EXPERIMENTS. 

Any one may see the spots on the sun prbo has ■ Spy-gUM. Darken 
the room and pal the glass through an opening toward the sun, as shown 
in ¥\^ 87. The rye-piece should be drawn out ahout half an inch be- 



96 



A SOLAR SYSTEM 



yond its usual focusing for distant objects. The farther it is drawn, the 
nearer must we hold the screen for a perfect image. 

By holding a paper near the eye-piece, the proper direction of the instru- 
ment may be discovered without injury to the eyes. I>y this means the 
sun can be studied from day to day, and its spots or the transits of Mer- 
cury and Venus shown to any number of spectators. 




Fig. 37.— Holding Telescope to see the Snu's Spots. 



First covering the eyes with very dark or smoked glasses, erect a di>k 
of pasteboard four inches in diameter between you and the sun ; ( 
one eye; stand near it, and the whole sun is obscured. Withdraw from 
it till the sun's rays just shoot over the edge of the disk on every Bide. 
Measure the distance from the eye to the disk. You will be able to de- 
termine the distance of the sun by the rule of three : thus, as four inches 
is to 8G0,000 miles, so is distance from eye to disk to distance from disk 
to the sun. Take such measurements at sunrise, noon, and sunset, and 
see the apparently differing sizes due to refraction. 



VI. 

THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE. 

u He hangeth the earth upon nothing." — Job xxvt. 7. 

5 



"Let a power be delegated to a finite spirit equal to the projection of 

the most ponderous planet in its orbit, and, from an exhaustless magazine, 

let this spirit select Ids grand central orb. Let him with puissant arm 

locate it in space, and, obedient to hi- mandate, there let it remain fori 
fixed. He proceeds to select his planetary globes, which he is now 

quired to marshal in their impropriate order of distance from the sun. 
Heed well this distribution; for should a b ingle globe be misplaced, the 
divine harmony is destroyed forever. Let US admit that finite intcllig< 
may at length determine the order of combination : the might) host i- 
arrayed in order. These worlds, like fiery coursers, stand waiting the 
command to fly. But, mighty spirit, heed well the grand step, ponder 
well the direction in which thou wilt launch each uniting world ; weigh 
well the mighty impulse soon to he given, for out of the myriads ofdi 
tions, and the myriads of impulsive forco, there comes hut a single com- 
bination that will secure the perpetuity ofyour complex scheme. In vain 
does the bewildered finite spirit attempt to fathom this mighty depth. In 
vain does it seek to resolve the stupendous problem. It turns away, and 
while endued with omnipotent power, exclaims, 'Give to me infinite wis- 
dom, or relieve me from the impossible task!" 1 — ( >. M. Mm m.i.. LLP. 






THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM 8PACE 99 



VI. 

THE PLANETS, AS SEEX FROM SPACE. 

If we were to go out into Bpace a few millions of 
miles from either pole of the sun, and were endowed 
with wonderful keenness of vision, we should perceive 
certain facts, viz.: That space is frightfully dark except 
when we look directly at some luminous body. There 
i- no air to bend the light out of its course, no clouds 
or other objects to reflect it in a thousand directions. 
Every star is a brilliant point, even in perpetual sun- 
shine. The cold is frightful beyond the endurance of 
our bodies. There is no sound of voice in the absence 

air, and conversation by means of vocal organs being 
impossible, it must be carried on by means of mind 
communication. AVe see below an unrevolving point 

the sun that marks its pole. Ranged round in order 
the various planets, each with its axis pointing in 
very nearly the same direction. All planets, except pos- 
sibly Venus, and all moons except those of Uranus and 

ptnne, present their equators to the >un. The din 
orbital and axial revolution seen from above the 

:th Pole would be opposite to that of the hands of a 

watch. 

The speed of this orbital revolution must be propor- 
tioned t<> the distance from the sun. The attraction o\ 
the .-uii varies Inversely a.- tin- Bquare of the distance. 



100 



A SOLAR SYSTEM. 




Fig. 3S.— Orbits and Comparative Sizes of the Planets. 

It holds a planet with a certain power; one twice as far 
off, with one-fourth that power. This attraction must be 
counterbalanced by centrifugal force; great force from 
great speed when attraction is great, and small from less 



THE PLANET^ AS SEEN FROM SPACE 101 

speed when attractive power is diminished by distance. 
Hence Mercnry must go 29.5 miles per second — seven; 
ty rimes as fast as a rifle-ball that goes two-fifths of a 

mile in a second — or be drawn into the sun; while 
Neptune, seventy-five times as far off, and hence at- 
tracted only -^V- as much, must be slowed down to 3.4 
mil. <>nd to prevent its flying away from the fee- 

bler attraction of the sun. The orbital velocity of the 
various planets in miles per second is as follows: 



Mercury 29.55 

Venn? 21.61 

Earth 18.38 

Mars 14.99 



Jupiter 8.0G 

Saturn 5.95 

Uranus 4. 20 

Neptune o.oG 



Hence, while the earth makes one revolution in its 
year. Mercury has made over four revolutions, or pass- 
ed through four years; the slower Neptune has made 
&nly t4t of one revolution. 

The time of axial revolution which determines the 
length of the day varies with different planets. The 
periods of the four planets nearest the sun vary only 
half an hour from that of the earth, while the enor- 
mous bodies of Jupiter and Saturn revolve in ten and 
ten and a quarter hours respectively. This high rate of 
ed, and its resultant, centrifugal force, has aided in 
preventing these bodies from becoming as dense as they 
would otherwise be — Jupiter being only 0.24 as dense as 
the earth, and Saturn only 0.13. This extremely rapid 
revolution produces a great flattening at the poles. If 
Jupiter should rotate four times more rapidly than it 
lid not be held together compactly. As it is, 

diameter is five thousand miles less than the 
rial: the difference in diameters produced by the 



102 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

same cause on the earth, owing to the slower motion 
and smaller mass, being only twenty -six miles. The 
effect of this will be more specifically treated here- 
after. 

The difference in the size of the planets is very no- 
ticeable. If we represent the sun by a gilded gli 
two feet in diameter, we must represent Vulcan and 
Mercury by mustard-seeds : Venus, by a pea ; Earth, by 
another; Mars, by one-half the Bize; Asteroids, by the 
motes in a sunbeam; Jupiter, by a Bmall-sized orang 
Saturn, by a smaller one; 1'ranus, by a cherry; and 
Neptune, by one a little larger. 

Apply the principle that attraction is in proportion 
to the mass, and a man who weighs one hundred and 
fifty pounds on the earth weighs three hundred and 
ninety-six on Jupiter, and only fifty-eight on Mars: 
while on the Asteroids he could play with bowlders for 
marbles, hurl hills like Milton's angels, leap into the 
fifth-story windows with ease, tumble over precipi 
without harm, and go around the little worlds in Beven 
jumps. 

The seasons of a planet are caused by the inclination 
of its axis to the plane of its orbit. In Fig. 89 the ro- 
tating earth is seen at A, with its northern pole turning 
in constant sunlight, and its southern pole in constant 
darkness ; everywhere south of the equator is more dark- 
ness than day, and hence winter. Passing on to B, the 
world is seen illuminated equally on each side of the 
equator. Every place has its twelve hours' darkii 
and light at each revolution. But at C — the axis of the 
earth always preserving the same direction — the north- 
ern pole is shrouded in continual gloom. Every place 






THE PLANETS, AS BEEN FROM SPACE 105 

north of the equator gete more darkness than light, and 
bence winter. 

The varying inclination of the axes of the different 
planets gives a wonderful variety to their seasons. The 

sun is always nearly over the equator of Jupiter, and 
every place has nearly its live hours day and live hours 
niffht. The seasons of Earth, Mars, and Saturn are so 
much alike, exeept in length, that no comment is nec- 

iry. The ice-fields at either pole of Mars are ob- 
served to enlarge and contract, according as it is win- 
ter or summer there. Saturn's seasons are each seven 
and a half years long. The alternate darkness and light 
at the poles is fifteen years long. 

But the seasons of Venus present the greatest anom- 
aly, if its assigned inclination of axis (75°) can be relied 
<»n as correct, which is doubtful. Its tropic zone extends 
nearly to the pole, and at the same time the winter at 
the other pole reaches the equator. The short period 
of this planet causes it to present the south pole to the 
Mm only one hundred and twelve days after it lias been 

rehing the one at the north. This gives two win- 

5, springs, summers, and autumns to the equator in 

hundred and twenty-five day-. 
If each whirling world should leave behind it a trail 

light to mark its orbit, and our perceptions of form 
wore sufficiently acute, we should see that these curves 

light are not exact circles, but a little flattened into 
an ellipse, with the sun always in one of the foci. Hence 

li planet is nearer to the bus at one part of its orbit 
than another; that point is called the perihelion, and 
the farthest point aphelion. This eccentricity of orbit, 

or distance of the BUn from the centre, is \'eiy small. 



106 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

In the case of Venus it is only .007 of the whole, and in 
no instance is it more than .2, viz., that of Mercury. This 
makes the sun appear twice as large, bright, and hot as 
seen and felt on Mercury at its perihelion than at its 
aphelion. The earth is 3,230,000 miles nearer to the 
sun in our winter than summer. Hence the summer in 
the southern hemisphere is more intolerable than in the 
northern. But this eccentricity is steadily diminishing 
at a uniform rate, by reason of the perturbing influence 
of the other planets. In the case of some other planets 
it is steadily increasing, and, if it were to go on a sufli- 
cient time, might cause frightful extremes of tempera- 
ture; but Lalande has shown that there are limits at 
wdiich it is said, "Thus far shalt thou ^k and no far- 
ther." Then a compensative diminution will follow. 

Conceive a large globe, to represent the sun, float- 
ing in a round pond. The axis will be inclined 7i° to 
the surface of the water, one side of the equator be 7£° 
below the surface, and the other side the same distance 
above. Let the half-submerged earth sail around the 
sun in an appropriate orbit. The surface of the water 
will be the plane of the orbit, and the water that reaches 
out to the shore, where the stars would be set, will be 
the plane of the ecliptic. It is the plane of the earth's 
orbit extended to the stars. 

The orbits of all the planets do not lie in the same 
plane, but are differently inclined to the plane of the 
ecliptic, or the plane of the earth's orbit. Going out 
from the sun's equator, so as to see all the orbits of the 
planets on the edge, we should see them inclined to that 
of the earth, as in Fig. 40. 

If the earth, and Saturn, and Pallas were lying in 






THE PLANETS, AS SEEJN FROM SPACE 



107 



the same direction from the sun, and the outer bodies 
were to start in a direct line for the sun, they would 




Fl*. 40.— Inclination of the Planes of Orbit?. 

not collide with the earth on their way; but Saturn 
would pass 4,000,000 and Pallas 50,000,000 miles over 
our heads. From this same cause we do not see Venus 
and Mercury make a transit across the disk of the sun 
at every revolution. 

Fig. 41 shows a view of the orbits of the earth and 




It.— Inclination of Orbits of Venna and Earth. Nodal Line, D B. 

Venus - en not from the edge but from a position 

ewhat above. The point E, where Venue eroa 

plane of the earth's orbit, is called the ascending 

le. If the earth were at B when Venus is at h\ 

qua would 1m- seen on the disk of tlio sun, making ;i 

The same would bo true if the earth were at 

I K and Venus at the descending n<>.|o \\ 

This genera] view of the flying spheres is full of in- 



108 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

terest. While quivering themselves with thunderous 
noises, all is silent about them ; earthquakes ma) 7 be 
struggling on their surfaces, but there is no hint of 
contention in the quiet of space. They are too distant 
from one another to exchange signals, except, perhaps, 
the fleet of asteroids that sail the azure between Mara 
and Jupiter. Some of these come near together, con- 
tinuing to fill each other's sky for days with brightness, 
then one gradually draws ahead. They have all phaf 
for each other — crescent, half, full, and gibbous. Tin 
hundreds of bodies till the realm where they arc with 
inexhaustible variety. Beyond are vast spaces — cold, 
dark, void of matter, but full of power. Occasionally a 
little spark of light looms up rapidly into a world so 
huge that a thousand of our earths could not occupy its 
vast bulk. It swings its four or eight moons with per- 
fect skill and infinite strength; but they go by and 
leave the silence unbroken, the darkness nnlighted for 
years. Nevertheless, every part of space is full of pow- 
er. Nowhere in its wide orbit can a world find a place : 
at no time in its eons of flight can it find an instant 
when the sun does not hold it in safety and life. 

The Outlook from tin Earth. 

If we come in from our wanderings in space and 
take an outlook from the earth, we shall observe certain 
movements, easily interpreted now that we know the 
system, but nearly inexplicable to men who naturally 
supposed that the earth was the largest, most stable, 
and central body in the universe. 

We see, first of all, sun, moon, and stars rise in the 
east, mount the heavens, and set in the west. As I 



THE PLANETS, as SEEN FROM SPACE 109 

revolve in ray pivoted study-chair, and see all Bidea of 
the room — library, maps, photographs, telescope, and 

windows — I have no suspicion that it is the room that 
whirls: hut looking out of a car-window in a depot at 
ther car, one cannot tell which is moving, whether 
it he his car or the other. In regard to the world, we 
have come to feel its whirl. We have noticed the pyr- 
amids of Egypt lifted to hide the sun; the mountains 

llymettus hurled down, so as to disclose the moon 
that was behind them to the watchers on the Acropo- 
lis; and the mighty mountains of Moab removed to re- 

,1 the stars of the east. Train the telescope on any 

r; it must be moved frequently, or the world will 
roll the instrument away from the object. Suspend a 
cannon-ball by a fine wire at the equator; set it vibrat- 

g north and south, and it swings all day in precisely 
the same direction. But suspend it directly over the 
north pole, and set it swinging toward Washington ; in 
h<»urs after it is swinging toward Rome, in Italy ; in 
twelve hours, toward Siam, in Asia; in nineteen hours, 
toward the Sandwich Islands; and in twenty-four, to- 
ward Washington again, not because it has changed the 
plane of its vibration, but because the earth has whirled 

neath it. and the torsion of the wire has not been suf- 
ficient t«> compel the plane of the original direction to 
3 with the turning of the earth. The law of in- 
3 it moving in the same direction. The same 

perimental proof of revolution is shown in a propor- 
tional degree at any point between the pole and the 

Bat the watchers on the Acropolis do not get turned 

e the moon ;'t the same time every night. 



110 



A SOLAR SYSTEM 



We turn down our eastern horizon, but we do not find 
fair Luna at the same moment we did the night before. 
We are obliged to roll on for some thirty to fifty min- 
utes longer before we find the moon. It must be l 
ing in the same direction, and it takes us longer to gel 
round to it than if it were always in the same spot; so 
we notice a star near the moon one night — it is 13° wot 
of the moon the next night. The moon is going around 



♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 



♦ ♦ 






♦ 

% 



♦ ♦ 




4 



♦♦♦ 



♦ • ♦ 



Fig. 42.— Showing the Sun's Movement among the Stars. 

the earth from west to east, and if it goes 13° in one 
day, it will take a little more than twenty-seven days to 
go the entire circle of 300°. 



ii 



THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE 111 

In our outlook we soon observe that we do not 

our revolution come to see the same stars rise at 

the sumo hour every night. Orion and the Pleiades, 

our familiar friends in the winter heavens, are gone 
;u the summer sky. Have they tied, or are we 
turned from them i This is easily understood from 
Fig. 42. 

When the observer on the earth at A looks into the 
midnight sky he sees the stars at E: but as the earth 
sses on to B, he sees those stars at E three minutes 
ner every night: and at midnight the stars at F are 
r his head. Thus in a year, by going around the sun, 
wo have every star of the celestial dome in our mid- 
night sky. AVe see also how the sun appears among 
the successive constellations. When we are at A, we 
the sun among the stars at G; but as we move to- 
ward B, the sun appears to move toward II. If we 
ha<l observed the sun rise on the 20th of August, 1S7G, 
we should have seen it rise a little before Regulus, 
and a little south of it, in such a relation as circle 1 is 
t«» the star in Fig. 43. By sunset the earth 
had moved enough to make the sun appear to 
he at circle 2, and by the next morning at cir- 
'. at which time Regulus would rise before 
the sun. Thus the earth's motion seems to 
sun traverse a regular circle among the stars 
a year: but it is not the bud that moves. 

ire certain stars th.it have Buch irregular, un- 
I tin, vagarious ways that they were called vagabonds, 

ets, by the early a>f roiiomers. Here is the path 

Jupiter in the year 1866 (Fig. Hi. These bodies 
forward for awhile, then stop, start aside, then retro 



112 A SOLAR SYSTEM 

grade, and go on again. Some arc never seen far from 
the sun, and others in all parts of the ecliptic. 






Fig. 44. 

First see them as they stand to-day, as in Fig. 45. 
The observer stands on the earth at A. It has rolled 
over so far that he cannot see the sun ; it has set. Bat 






— oj — . 



/* 






Fig. 45.— Showing Position Of Planets. 

Venus is still in sight; Jupiter is -±5° behind Venus, 
and Saturn is seen 90° farther east. When A lias roll- 
ed a little farther, if he is awake, he will see Mara be- 
fore he sees the sun ; or, in common language, Venus 
will set after, and Mars rise before the sun. All these 
bodies at near and far distances seem set in the starry 
dome, as the different stars seem in Fig. 42, p. 110. 

The mysterious movements of advance and retreat 
are rendered intelligible by Fig. 46. The planet Mer- 
cury is at A, and, seen from the earth, B is located at 



THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE. 



113 



on the background of the stars it seems to be among. 

It remains apparently stationary at a for some time, be- 




Fiir. 46. — Apparent Movements of an Inferior Planet. 

pause approaching the earth in nearly a straight line. 
g D to C, it appears to retrograde among the 
: remains apparently stationary for some time, 
then, in passing from C to E and A, appears to pass 
•k among the stars to a. The progress of the earth, 
meanwhile, although it greatly retards the apparent mo- 
tion from A to C, greatly hastens it from C to A. 

It is also apparent that Mercury and Venus, seen 

from the earth, can never appear far from the sun. 

y must be just behind the sun as evening stars, or 

fore it as heralds of the morning. Venus is nev- 

Miore than 47 : from the sun. and Mercury never more 

than 30 : indeed, it keeps bo near the sun that very 

have ever seen the brilliant sparkler. Ob- 

Tehow much larger the planet appears near the earth 

in conjunction at 1) than in opposition at E. Observe 

o what phases it must present, and how transits some- 

3 take pi 



11 J: A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

The movement of a superior planet, one whose orbit 
is exterior to the earth, is clear from Fig. 47. "When 
the earth is at A and Mars at B, it will appear among 
the stars at C. When the earth is at I), Mars having 
moved more slowly to E, will have retrograded to F. It 
remains there while the earth passes on, in a line near- 
ly straight, from Mars to G; then, as the earth begins 
to curve around the sun, Mars will appear to retraveree 



Fig. 47. — Illustrating Movements of a Superior Planet 

the distance from F to C, and beyond. The farther 

the superior planet is from the earth the less will be 
the retrograde movement. 

The reader should draw the orbits in proportion, and, 
remembering the relative speed of each planet, note the 
movement of each in different parts of their orbits. 

To account for these most simple movements, the 
earlier astronomers invented the most complex and im- 
possible machinery. They thought the earth the centre, 
and that the sun, moon, and stars were carried about it. 
as stoves around a person to warm him. They thought 
these strange movements of the planets were accom- 
plished by mounting them on subsidiary eccentric 
wheels in the revolving crystal sphere. All that was 



THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE 115 

needed to give them a right conception was a sinking 

their world and themselves to an appropriate propor- 
tion, and an enlargement of their vision, to take in from 

an exalted standpoint a view of the simplicity of the 
perfect plan. 

EXPERIMENTS. 

n rod, or tube, or telescope pointing at a star in the east or west, 
and the earth's revolution will be apparent in a moment, taming the tube 
y from the star. Point it at stars about the north pole, and those 
on one side will be found going in an opposite direction from those on 
ther, and very much slower than those about the equator. Any one 
can try the pendulum experiment who lias access to some lofty place 
m which to suspend the ball. It was tried in Bunker Hill Monument 
a few years ago, and is to be tried in Paris, in the summer of 1S7*>. with a 
a -hundred -pound pendulum and a suspending wire seventy yards 
g. The advance and retrograde movements of planets can be illus- 
trated by two persons walking around a centre and noticing the place 
where the person appears projected on the wall beyond. 



PROCESSION OF STARS AND SOULS. 

" I STOOD upon the open casement, 
And looked upon the night, 
And saw the westward-going stars 
Pi u slowly out of >ight. 

- wly the bright procession 
Went down the gleaming arch. 

And my soul discerned the music 
Of the long triumphal march ; 

"Till the - 'ial army, 

81 etching far beyond, the p 
1 ;■■■ nine the eternal symbol 
( )f the mighty march of bouIs. 



110 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

" Onward, forever onward, 
Ked Mars led on his clan ; 
And the moon, like a mailed maiden, 
Was riding in the van. 

"And some were bright in beauty, 
And some were faint and small. 
But these might be, in their great heights, 
The noblest of them all. 

" Downward, forever downward, 
Behind earth'fl dusky shore, 
They passed into the unknown night — 
They passed, and were no more. 

1 'No more ! oh, say not 

And downward is not just ; 
For the sight is weak and the sense is dim 
That looks through heated dust. 

"The stars and the mailed moon, 
Though they seem to fall and die, 
Still sweep in their embattled lines 
An endless reach of sky. 

"And though the hills of Death 
May hide the bright array, 
The marshalled brotherhood of souls 
Still keeps its onward way. 

"Upward, forever upward, 
I see their march sublime, 
And hear the glorious music 
Of the conquerors of Time. 

" And long let me remember 
That the palest fainting one 
May to diviner vision be 
A bright and blazing sun." 

Thomas Buchanan Read. 






VII. 

SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND 
COMETS. 

• Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Aze- 
uul llicv died." — Joshua x. 11. 




A SWAKM OF MKTKOB8 MKKT1NG THE EARTH. 



Their orbits are nil parallel. Those coming in direct line to the eye appear as 
stars, having no motion. Those at one side of this line arc seen in foreshortened 
perspective. Those farthest from the centre, other things being equal, appear 
longest. The centre, called the radiant point, of these November meteors is sit- 
uated in Leo; that of the August meteors in Perseus, over fifty such radiant 
points have been discovered. Over 30,000 me'eors have been visible in an hour. 



SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS 119 



VII. 

SHOOTIXG-STARS, METEORS, AXD COMETS. 

Before particularly considering the larger aggrega- 
)i matter called planets or worlds as individuals, 
it is best to investigate a part of the solar system con- 
ing of smaller collections of matter scattered every- 
where through space. They are of various densities, 
:n a cloudlet of rarest gas to solid rock; of various 
from a grain's weight to little worlds; of vari- 
- relations to each other, from independent individ- 
uality to related streams millions of miles long. When 
they become visible they are called shooting-stars, which 
evanescent star-points darting through the upper 
air. leaving for an instant a brilliant train ; meteors, 
Hidden lights, having a discernible diameter, passing 
r a large extent of country, often exploding with 
lence 1 ig. 48), and throwing down upon the earth 
lites ; and comets, vast extents of ghostly light, 
that come we know not whence and go we know not 
whither. All these forms of matter are governed by 
the same laws as the worlds, and are an integral part 
'lie solar system — a part of the unity of the universe, 
one has seen the so-called Bhooting- stars, 
break out with a sadden brilliancy, shoot a few 
- with quiet speed, and are gone before we can 
The cause of their appearance, the 



120 



A SOLAR SYSTEM. 



conversion of force into heat by their contact with our 
atmosphere, has been already explained. Other facts 
remain to be studied. They are found to appear about 
seventy-three miles above the earth, and to disappear 




Fig. 48.— Explosion of a liolide. 

about twenty miles nearer the surface. Their average 
velocity, thirty -five, sometimes rises to one hundred 
miles a second. They exhibit different colors, accord- 
ing to their different chemical substances, which arc 
consumed. The number of them to be seen on differ- 
ent nights is exceedingly variable; sometimes not more 



SHOOTINQ-STARS^ METEORS, AXD COMETS 121 

than five or six an hour, and sometimes so many that 
l man cannot count those appearing in a small section 

sky. This variability is found to be periodic. There 
are everywhere in space little meteoric masses of mat- 
ter, from the weight of a grain to a ton, ami from the 
density of gas to rock. The earth meets 7,500,000 
little bodies every day — there is collision — the little 
meteoroid gives out its lightning sign of extinction, and, 
consumed in fervent heat, drops to the earth as gas or 
dust. If we add the number light enough to be seen 
by a telescope, they cannot be less than 400,000,000 a 
day. Everywhere we <^\ in a space as large as that 

upied by the earth and its atmosphere, there must 
be at least 13,000 bodies— one in 20,000,000 cubic miles 
— large enough to make a light visible to the naked 

. and forty times that number capable of revealing 
themselves to telescopic vision. Professor Peirce is 




Yvi. 49.— Bolides, 



ut to publish, as the startling result of his investi- 
J 3 "that the heat which the earth receives direct- 
ly from meteors is the same in amount which it re- 
from the sun by radiation, and thai the sun re- 
five-sixths of its heal lV<>m the meteors that fall 
. it." 



122 



A SOLAR SYSTEM. 



In 1783 Dr. Schmidt was fortunate enough to have 
a telescopic view of a system of bodies which had turn- 
ed into meteors. These were two larger bodies fol- 
lowed by several smaller ones, going in parallel Hi 
till they were extinguished. They probably had been 
revolving about each other as worlds and satellites be- 







Fig. DO. — Santa ilite. 

fore entering our atmosphere. It is more than prob- 
able that the earth has many such bodies, too small to 

be visible, revolving around it as moons. 

Aerolites. 

Sometimes the bodies are large enough to bear the 
heat, and the unconsuined centre comes to the earth. 



SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS 123 

Their velocity has been lessened by the resisting air, 
and the excessive heat diminished. Still, if found soon 
after their descent, they are too hot to be handled. 

These are called aerolites or air-stones. There was a 
fall in Iowa, in February, 1875, from which fragments 
amounting to five hundred pounds weight were se- 
cured. On the evening of December 21st, 1876, a me- 
teor of unusual size and brilliancy passed over the 
states of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. 
It was first seen in the western part of Kansas, at an 
altitude of about sixty miles. In crossing the State of 
Missouri it began to explode, and this breaking up con- 
tinued while passing Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, till it 
consisted of a large flock of brilliant balls chasing each 
other across the sky, the number being variously esti- 
mated at from twenty to one hundred. It was aecom- 
i/ 

panied by terrific explosions, and was seen along a path 
of not less than a thousand miles. When first seen in 
Kansas, it is said to have appeared as large as the full 
moon, and with a train from twenty-five to one hun- 
dred feet long. Another, very similar in appearance 
and behavior, passed over a part of the same course in 
February, 1879. AtLaigle, France, on April 26th, L803, 
about <»ne o'clock in the day, from two to three thou- 
sand fell. The largest did not exceed seventeen pounds 
weight. One fell in Weston, Connecticut, in l s <>7, 
weighing two hundred pounds. A very destructive 
shower is mentioned in the book of Joshua, chap. \. 
ver. 11. 

»die> are not evenly distributed through space. 

In some places they arc gathered into systems which 

•le round the sun in orbits as certain as those of the 



121 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

planets. The chain of asteroids is an illustration of 
meteoric bodies on a large scale. They are hundreds 
in number — meteors are millions. They have their 
region of travel, and the sun holds them and the giant 
Jupiter by the same power. The Power that cares for 
a world cares for a sparrow. If their orbit so lies that 
a planet passes through it, and the planet and the me- 
teors are at the point of intersection at the same time, 
there must be collisions, and the lightning signs of ex- 
tinction proportioned to the number of little bodies in 
a given space. 

It' is demonstrated that the earth encounters more 
than one hundred such By stem 8 of meteoric bodies in a 
single year. It passes through one on the l<>th of Au- 
gust, another on the 11th of November. In a certain 
part of the first there is an agglomeration of bodies suf- 
ficient to become visible as it approaches the sun, and 
this is known as the comet of 1m'>l>; in the second is a 
similar agglomeration, known as Temple's comet. [I 
repeating the same thing to Bay that mcteoi-oids follow in 
the train of the comets. The probable orbit of the No- 
vember meteors and the comet of 1866 is an exceeding- 
ly elongated ellipse, embracing the orbit of the earth at 
one end and a portion of the orbit of Uranus at the 
other (Fig. 51). That of the August meteors and the 
comet of 1862 embraces the orbit of the earth at one 
end, and thirty per cent, of the other end is beyond the 
orbit of Neptune. 

In January, 1840, Biela's comet was observed to be 
divided. At its next return, in 1852, the parts were 
1,500,000 miles apart. They could not be found on 
their periodic returns in 1859, 1865, and 1872; but it 



SHOOTING-STAR^ METEORS, AXD COMETS. 125 

should have crossed the earth's orbit early in Septem- 
ber, 1872. The earth itself would arrive at the point of 
crossing two or three months later. If the law of revo- 
lution held, we might still expect to find some of the 
trailing meteoroids of the comet not gone by on oar ar- 




M. -Orbit of the November Meteors ami tlie Comet of 1 

L lr was shown that the point of the earth that 

would strike them would be toward a certain place, in 
the constellation of Andromeda, if the remains of the di- 
bit. -d comet were >till there. The prediction was veri 

ery respect. At the appointed time, place, 



126 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

and direction, the streaming lights were in our sky. 
That these little bodies belonged to the original comet 
none can doubt. By the perturbations of planetary at- 
traction, or by different original velocities, a comet may 
be lengthened into an invisible stream, or an invisible 
stream agglomerated till it is visible as a comet. 

( f onu ts. 

Comets will be most easily understood by the fore- 
going considerations. They are often treated as if 
they were no part of the solar system; but they are 
under the control of the same laws, and owe their ex- 
istence, motion, and continuance to the same causes 
Jupiter and the rest of the planets. They are really 
planets of wider wandering, greater ellipticity, and less 
densit3 r . They have periodic times less than the earth, 
and fifty times as great as Neptune. They are little 
clouds of gas or meteoric matter, or both, darting into 
the solar system from every side, at every angle witli 
the plane of the ecliptic, becoming luminous with re- 
flected light, passing the sun, and returning again to 
outer darkness. Sometimes they have no tail, having a 
nucleus surrounded by nebulosity like a dim sun with 
zodiacal light; sometimes one tail, sometimes half a 
dozen. These follow the comet to perihelion, and pre- 
cede it afterward (Fig. 52). The orbits of some comets 
are enormously elongated; one end may lie inside the 
earth's orbit, and the other end be as far beyond Nep- 
tune as that is from the sun. Of course only a small 
part of such a curve can be studied by us : the comet is 
visible only when near the sun. The same curve around 
the sun may be an orbit that will bring it back again, 



SffOOTINOSTARS, METEORS, AND COMETS 127 




Fig. 52. — Aspects of Remarkable Comets. 

or one that will carry it off into infinite space, never to 
return. One rate of speed on the curve indicates an 
elliptical orbit that returns; a greater rate of speed in- 
dicates that it will take a parabolic orbit, which never 
tuns. The exact rate of speed is exceedingly difficult 
hence it cannot he confidently asserted 
thai met ever visible will not return. They may 

all belong to the solar system; hut some will certainly 
e thousands of years before their fiery forms will 

the watchful eye- of dwellers on the earth. A 
comet that has an elliptic orbit may have it changed to 



128 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

parabolic by the accelerations of its speed, by attracting 
planets; or a parabolic comet may become elliptic, and 
so permanently attracted to the system by the retarda- 
tions of attracting bodies. A comet of long period n 
be changed to one of short period by such attraction, or 
vice versa. 

The number of comets, like that of meteor streams, 
is exceedingly large. Five hundred have been visible 
to the naked eye since the Christian era. Two hun- 
dred have been Been by telescopes invented since their 
invention. Some authorities estimate the number be- 
longing to our solar system by million.-; Professor 
Peirce Bays more than live thousand million.-. 

Fit minis Com, /.v. 

The comet of L680 is perhaps the one that appeared 
in A.D. 41, soon after the death of Julius Caesar, also in 
the reign of Justinian, a.d. 531, and in 1106. Tlii- 

not determined by any recognizable resemblance. It 
had a tail 70° long; it was not all arisen when its head 
reached the meridian. It is possible, from the shape of 
its orbit, that it has a periodic time of nine thousand 
years, or that it may have a parabolic orbit, and never 
return. ( Observations taken two hundred years ago have 
not the exactness necessary to determine so delicate a 
point. 

On August 10th, ir>S2, llalley discovered a comet 
which he soon declared to be one seen by Kepler in 
1G07. Looking back still farther, he found that a com- 
et was seen in 1531 having the same orbit. Still far- 
ther, by the same exact period of seventy-five years, he 
found that it was the same comet that had disturbed 



SHOOTING-STARS^ METEORS, AND COMETS. 129 

the equanimity of 1\>jv Calixtus in L456. Calculations 
were undertaken as to the result of all the accelerations 
and retardations by the attractions of all the planets for 
the next seventy-live years. There was not time to fin- 
ish all the work; but a retardation of six hundred and 
eighteen days was determined, with a possible error of 
thirty days. The comet actually came to time within 
thirty-three days, on March 12th, 1750. Again its re- 
turn was calculated with more laborious care. It came 
t<> time and passed the sun within three days of the pre- 
dicted time, on the 16th of November, 1835. It passed 
from sight of the most powerful telescopes the follow- 
ing May, and has never since been seen by human eye. 
Bnt the eye of science sees it as having passed its 
aphelion beyond the orbit of Neptune in 1873, and is 
already hastening back to the warmth and light of the 
It will be looked for in 1911; and there is good 
hope of predicting, long before it is seen, the time of 
its perihelion within a day. 

Bii let* lost ( 1 onu f. — This was a comet with a periodic 
time of six years and eight months. It was observed 
in January, 1 846, to have separated into two parts of 
unequal brightness. The lesser part grew for a month 
until it equalled the other, then became smaller and 

ippeared, while the other was visible a month longer. 

disappearance the parts were 200,000 miles asunder. 
On its next return, in 1852, the parts were 1,500,000 
miles apart ; sometimes one was brighter and sometimes 
the other; which was the fragment and which was the 
main body could not be recognized. They vanished in 
ber, 1 v .~>l\ and have never been Been Bince. Three 

olutions have been made Bince that time, but no 



130 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

trace of it could be discovered. Probably the same in- 
fluence that separated it into parts, separated the par- 
ticles till too thin and tenuous to be seen. There 
ground for believing that the earth passed through a 
part of it, as before stated under the head of meteor-. 

The Great Count of 1843 passed nearer the sun than 
any known body. It almost grazed the sun. If it ever 
returns, it will be in a.d. 2373. 

Donate* Count of 1858. — This was one of the most 
magnificent of modern times. During the first three 
months it showed no tail, but from August to October 
it had developed one forty degrees in length. It> period 
is about two thousand years. Every reader remembers 
the comet of the summer of 1875, 

EnekcH Count. — This comet has become famous \<>v 
its supposed confirmation of the theory that space was 
filled with a substance infinitely tenuous, which resisted 
the passage of this gaseous body in an appreciable de- 
gree, and in long ages would so retard the motion of all 
the planets that gravitation would draw them all one 
by one into the sun. AVe must not be misled by the 
term retardation to suppose it means behind time, for a 
retarded body is before time. If its velocity is dimin- 
ished, the attraction of the sun causes it to take a small- 
er orbit, and smaller orbits mean increased speed —hence 
the supposed retardation would shorten its periodic 
time. This comet was thought to be retarded two and 
a half hours at each revolution. If it was, it would not 
prove the existence of the resisting medium. Other 
causes, unknown to us, might account for it. Sub 
quent and more exact calculations fail to find any re- 
tardations in at least two revolutions between 1865 and 



8HOOTINOSTAES, METEORS, AND COMETS. 131 

1871. Indications point to a retardation of one and a 
half hours both before and since. But such discrep- 
ancy of result proves nothing concerning a resisting 
medium, but rather is an argument against its existence. 
sides, Faye's comet, in four revolutions of seven years 
each, shows no sign of retardation. 

The truth may be this, that a kind of atmosphere ex- 
- around the sun, perhaps revealed by the zodiacal 
light, that reaches beyond where Encke's comet dips in- 
side the orbit of Mercury, and thus retards this body, 
but does not reach beyond the orbit of Mars, where 
Faye's comet wheels and withdraws. 

Of what do Comets consist? 

The unsolved problems pertaining to comets are very 
numerous and exceedingly delicate. Whence come 
they 1 Why did they not contract to centres of nebu- 
i Are there regions where attractions are balanced, 
and matter is left to contract on itself, till the move- 
nts of suns and planets adds or diminishes attrac- 
tive force on one side, and so allows them to be drawn 
vly toward one planet, and its sun, or another? 
There is ground for thinking that the comet of 1866 
I its train of meteors, visible to us in November, Was 
thus drawn into our system by the planet Uranus. In- 
'1. Leverrier has conjecturally fixed upon the date 
of a.i». 128 as the time when it occurred; but another 
closer observation of its next return, in 1899, will 
eded r<» give confirmation to the opinion. Our 
Bun's authority extend.- ;it least half-way to the nearest 
'I Btar, one hundred thousand times farther than the 
;' the earth. Meteoric and cometary matter ly- 



132 A sola/: SYSTEM. 

ing there, in a spherical shell about the solar system, 
balanced between the attraction of different suns, final- 
ly feels the power that determines its destiny toward 
our sun. It would take 167,000,000 years to 
thence to our system. 

The conditions of matter with which we are acquaint- 
ed do not cover all the ground presented by these n 
terious visitors. We know a gas sixteen times as light 
as air, but hydrogen is vastly too heavy and dense; for 
we see the faintest Btar through thousands of miles of 
eometary matter; we know that water may become 
cloudy vapor, but a little of it obscures the vision* 
Into what more ethereal, and we might almost Bay spir- 
itual, forms matter may be changed we cannot tell. But 
if we conceive cornets to be only gas, it would expand 
indefinitely in the realms of .-pace, where there is Do 
force of compression but its own. We might say that 
comets are composed of small separate masses of mat- 
ter, hundreds of miles apart; and, looking through thou- 
sands of miles of them, we see light enough reflected 
from them all to seem continuous. Doubtless that is 
sometimes the case. But the spectroscope shows anoth- 
er state of things: it reveals in some of these con 
an incandescent gas — usually some of the combinations 
of carbon. The conclusion, then, naturally is that there 
are both gas and small masses of matter, each with an 
orbit of its own nearly parallel to those of all the oth< 
and that they afford some attraction to hold the m 
of intermingled and confluent gas together. Our best 
judgment, then, is that the nucleus is composed of sepa- 
rate bodies, or matter in a liquid condition, capable of 
being vaporized by the heat of the sun, and driven off, 



SHOOTING-STABS, METEORS, AND comets. 133 

-team from a locomotive, into a tail. Indications <>t' 
this are found in the fact that tails grow smaller at suc- 

sive returns, as the matter capable of such vaporiza- 
tion becomes condensed. In some instances, as in that 
of the comet of 1S43, the head was diminished by the 
manufacture of a tail. On the other hand, Professor 
Peirce showed that the nucleus of the comets of 1680, 
L843, and L858 must have had a tenacity equal to steel, 
to prevent being pulled apart by the tidal forces caused 
by its terrible perihelion sweep around the sun. 

It is likely that there are great varieties of condition 
in different comets, and in the same comet at times. 
We see them but a few days out of the possible millions 
of their periodic time; we see them only close to the 
>un. under the spur of its tremendous attraction and 
terrible heat. This gives us ample knowledge of the 
path of their orbit and time of their revolution, but 
little ground for judgment of their condition, when they 

\ ly round the uttermost cape of their far-voyaging, 
in the terrible cold and darkness, to commence their 
homeward flight. The unsolved problems are not all 
in the distant sun and more distant stars, but one of 
them is carried by us, sometimes near, sometimes far 
<>ff: but our acquaintance with the possible forms and 
conditions of matter is too limited to enable us t<> mas- 
ter the difficulties. 

Will Comets sirih (hi Earth t 

\ ery likely, since one <>r two have done so within a 

• period. What will bo the effect I That depends 

jumstances. There is good reason to suppose we 

through the tail of a comet in L 861, and the only 



134: A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

observable effect was a peculiar phosphorescent mist. 
If the comet were composed of small meteoric masses a 
brilliant shower would be the result. But if we fairly 
encountered a nucleus of any considerable mass and 
lidity, the result would be far more serious. The m; 
of Donatrs comet has been estimated by M. Faye to 
be -27JTTTTT7 °f that of the earth. If this amount of matter 
were dense as water, it would make a globe five hun- 
dred miles in diameter; and if as dense as Professor 
Peiree proved the nucleus of this comet to be, its im- 
pact with the earth would develop heat enough to melt 
and vaporize the hardest rocks. Happily there is little 
fear of this: as Professor Newcomb says,"So small is 
the earth in comparison with celestial space, that if one 
were to shut his eves and fire at random in the air, the 
chance of bringing down a bird would be better thai 
that of a comet of any kind striking the earth." Be- 
sides, we are not living under a government of chance, 
but under that of an Almighty Father, who upholdeth 
all things by the word of his power: and no world can 
come to ruin till he sees that it is best. 






VIII. 

THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS. 

"Throngh faith we understand that the worlds [plural] were framed 
the word of God, so that tilings which are seen were not made of 
things which do appear." — Ileb. xi. 3. 



"() rich and various man! thoti pnlnce of sight and sound, carrying in 
thy senses the morning, and the night, and the unfathomable galaxy; in 
thy brain the geometry of the city of God; in thy heart the power of love, 
and the realms of right and wrong. An individual man is n fruit which 
it costs all the foregoing ages to form and ripen. He is strong, n<»r to do 
but to live; not in his anus, but in his heart ; not as an agent, l>ut as ■ 
fact." — Emerson, 



THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS 137 



VIII. 

THE PLAXETS AS INDIVIDUALS. 

I low many bodies there may be revolving about the 
sun we have no means to determine or arithmetic to 
express. When the new star of the American Repub- 
lic appeared, there were but six planets discovered. 
Since then three regions of the solar system have been 
explored with wonderful success. The outlying realms 
beyond Saturn yielded the planet Uranus in 1781, and 

ptune in 1846. The middle region between Jupiter 
and Mars yielded the little planetoid Ceres in 1801, 
Pallas in 1802, and one hundred and ninety others 
Bince. The inner region between Mercury and the sun 

)i necessity full of small meteoric bodies; the ques- 
tion is. are there any bodies large enough to be seen 8 

The same great genius of Leverrier that gave us Nep- 
tune from the observed perturbations of Uranus, point- 

ont perturbations in Mercury that necessitated either 
a planet or a group of planetoids between Mercury and 
the sun. Theoretical astronomers, aided by the fact 
that no planet had certainly been -"en. and that all as- 

ted discoveries of one had been by inexperienced ob- 
S, inclined to the belief in a group, or that the dis- 
turbance was caused by the matter reflecting the zodi- 

_:it. 
When the total eclipse of the SUI1 occurred in 1878, 



138 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

astronomers were determined that the question of the 
existence of an infra-mercurial planet should be settled. 
Maps of all the stars in the region of the sun were care- 
fully studied, sections of the sky about the sun were 
signed to different observers, who should attend to noth- 
ing but to look for a possible planet. It is now con- 
ceded that Professor Watson, of Ann Arbor, actually 
saw the sought-for body. 

VULCAN. 

Tho god of lire; Ui sign "fi i" s bMMWfc 

Distance from the sun, 13,000,000 miles. Orbital revolution, 
about 20 days. 

MERCURY. 
The swift messenger of the gods; sign ? v hli 

Distance from the sun, 35,750,000 miles. Diameter, 2992 
miles. Orbital revolution, 87.97 days. Orbital velocity, 1773 
miles per minute. Axial revolution, 24h. 5m. 

Mercury shines with a white light nearly as brigl 

Sirius; is always near the horizon. When nearly be- 
tween us and the sun. as at D i Fig. 46, p. 1 13), its illu- 
minated side 1 nearly opposite to us, we. looking from E, 
see only a thin crescent of its light. When it is at its 
greatest angular distance from the sun, as A or C, we 
see it illuminated like the half-moon. AVlien it is be- 
yond the sun, as at E, we see its whole illuminated face 
like the full-moon. 

The variation of its apparent size from the varying 
distance is very striking. At its extreme distance from 
the earth it subtends an angle of only five seconds ; near- 
est to us, an angle of twelve seconds. Its distance from 
the earth varies nearly as one to three, and its apparent 
size in the inverse ratio. 



THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS. 139 

When Mercury comes between the earth and the sun, 

ir the line where the planes of their orbits cut each 
other by reason of their inclination, the dark body of 
Mercury will be seen on the bright surface of the sun. 
This is called a transit. If it goes across the centre of 
the sun it may consume eight hours. It goes 100,000 
miles an hour, and has 860,000 miles of disk to cross. 
The transit of 1STS occupied seven and a half hours. 
The transits for the remainder of the century will 
occur: 



November 7th 1881 

Mav 9th 1891 



November 10th 1894 

November 4th 1001 



VENUS. 

Goddess of beauty; its sign ?, a mirror. 

Distance from the sun, 66,750,000 miles. Diameter, 7660 
miles. Orbital Velocity, 1296 miles per minute. Axial rev- 
olution, 23h. 21m. Orbital revolution, 224.7 days. 

This brilliant planet is often visible in the daytime. 
I was once delighted by seeing Venus looking down, a 
little after mid-day, through the open space in the dome 
of the Pantheon at Rome. It has never since seemed 

me as if the home of all the gods was deserted. 
Phoebus, Diana, Venus and the rest, thronged through 
that open upper door at noon of night or day. Arago 
that Bonaparte, upon repairing to Luxemburg 
when the Directory was about to give him a frft\ was 
much surprised at seeing the multitude paying more 

ention to the heavens above the palace than to him 

his brilliant staff. [Jpon inquiry, he learned that 
these curious persons were observing with astonishment 
a star which they supposed to be that of the conqueror 

I taly. The emperor himself was nut indifferent when 



140 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

Iiis piercing eye caught the clear lustre of Venus smil- 
ing upon him at mid-day. 

This unusual brightness occurs when Venus is about 
five weeks before or after her inferior conjunction, . 
also nearest overhead by being north of the sun. This 
last circumstance occurs once in eight years, and came 
on February 10th, 1878. 

Venus may be as near the earth as 22,000,000 miles, 
and as far away as 160,000,000. This variation of its 
distances from the earth is obviously much greater than 
that of Mercury, and its consequent apparent size much 
more changeable. Its greatest and least apparent si 
are as ten and sixty-live (Fig. 53). 




•. 



o ° 

€ 

• e * 

Pig. 53.— Phases of Venus, and Various Apparent Dimensions. 

When Copernicus announced the true theory of the 
solar system, he said that if the inferior planets could 
be clearly seen they would show phases like the moon. 
When Galileo turned the little telescope he had made 
on Venus, he confirmed the prophecy of Copernicus. 
Desiring to take time for more extended observation, 
and still be able to assert the priority of his discovery, 
he published the following anagram, in which his dis- 
covery was contained : 



THE EARTH. 141 

11 H»c immature a me jam frustra louuiitur o. v." 

(These unripe things arc now vainly gathered by me.) 

He first saw Venus as gibbous; a few months revealed 
it as crescent, and then he transposed his anagram into: 

'•('vnthi;v figures ffimulatur mater amorum." 
(The mother of loves imitates the phases of Cynthia.) 

Many tilings that were once supposed to be known 
Qceming Venus are not confirmed by later and better 
observations. Venus is surrounded by an atmosphere so 
dense with clouds that it is conceded that her time of 
rotation and the inclination of her axis cannot be deter- 
mined. She revealed one of the grandest secrets of the 
universe to the first seeker; showed her highest beauty 
to her first ardent lover, and has veiled herself from the 
prying eyes of later comers. 

Florence has built a kind of shrine for the telescope 

Galileo. By it he discovered the phases of Venus, 

the spots on the sun, the mountains of the moon, the 

llites <>f Jupiter, and some irregularities of shape in 

tarn, caused by its rings. Galileo subsequently be- 

came blind, but he had used his eyes to the best pur- 

any man in his generation. 

THE EARTH. 
It< Bign •. 

Distance from the sun, 92,500,000 miles. Diameter, polar, 
7399 miles; equatorial, 7925! miles. Axial revolution, 23h. 
56m. 4 09s. ; orbital. 365.86. Orbital velocity per minute, 
1152.8 miles. 

ii- lift ourselves up a thonsand miles from the 

:i. We see it a- a ball hung upon nothing ill ellip- 
se the drop of falling water gather.- itself 



142 



A SOLAR SYSTFJf. 



into a sphere by its own inherent attraction, so the 

Noticing closely, we 



earth gathers itself into a ball 




Fig. 54 Earth and Moon in Space. 

see forms of continents outlined in bright relief, and 
oceanic forms in darker surfaces. AVe see that its axis 
of revolution is nearly perpendicular to the line of light 
from the sun. One-half is always dark. The sunrise 
greets a new thousand miles every hour; the glories of 



A CHORA BORE A LIS. 



143 



the sunset follow over an equal space, 180° behind. We 
are glad that the darkness never overtakes the morning. 

The Aurora Borealis. 

While east and west are gorgeous with sunrise and 
sunset, the north is often more glorious with its aurora 
borealis. We remember that all worlds have weird 




i a- Waving Oortaioa 



and inexplicable appendages. They arc not limited to 
1 surfaces or their circumambient air. The Bnn 
tv flames, corona, zodiacal light, and perhaps a 

kind of atmosphere than we know. The earth is 



141 A SOL All SYSTEM. 

not without its inexplicable surroundings. It lias not 
only its gorgeous eastern sunrise, its glorious western 
sunset, high above its surface in the clouds, but it also 
has its more glorious northern dawn far above it.- cloi 
and air. The realm of this royal splendor is as yet an 
unconquered world waiting for its Alexander. There 
are certain observable facts, viz., it prevails mostly near 
the arctic circle rather than the pole; it takes on vari- 
ous forms— cloud-like, arched, straight; it streams like 
banners, waves like curtains in the wind, is inconstant; 
is either the cause or result of electric disturbance; it 
is often from four hundred to six hundred miles above 
the earth, while our air cannot be over one hundred 
miles. It almost seems like a revelation to human < 
of those vast, changeable, panoramic pictures by which 
the inhabitants of heaven are taught. 

Investigation has discovered far more mysteries than 
it has explained. It is possible that the same cause that 
produces sun-spots produces aurora in all spare, viable 
in all worlds. If so, we shall see more abundant auroi 
at the next maximum of sun-spot, between l sv <' 84. 

The Delicate Batana of JFan 

A soap-bubble in the wind could hardly be more flex- 
ible in form and sensitive to influence than is the earth. 
On the morning of May 9th, ls7o\ the earth's crust at 
Peru gave a few great throbs upward, by the action of 
expansive gases within. The sea fled, and returned in 
great waves as the land rose and fell. Then these wa 
fled away over the great mobile surface, and in le>s than 
live hours they had covered a space equal to half of Eu- 
rope. The waves ran out to the Sandwich Islands, - 



THE EARTH, 145 

thousand miles, at the rate of five hundred miles an 

ir, and arrived there thirty feet high. They not only 
d «»ii in straight radial lines, but, having run up the 
coast to California, were deflected away into the former 
g of waves, making the most complex undulations. 
Similar beats of the great heart of the earth have sent 
ulses as widely and rapidly on previous occasions. 
The figure of the earth, even on the ocean, is irregu- 
lar, in consequence of the greater preponderance of land 
— and hence greater density — in the northern hemi- 
sphere. These irregularities are often very perplexing 
in making exact geodetic measurements. The tendency 
of matter to fly from the centre by reason of revolu- 
i causes the equatorial diameter to be twenty -six 
miles longer than the polar one. By this force the 
Mississippi River is enabled to run up a hill nearly 
three miles high at a very rapid rate. Its mouth is 
that distance farther from the centre of the earth than 
source, when but for this rotation both points would 
equally distant. 

If the water became more dense, or if the world were 

revolve faster, the oceans would rush to the equator, 

burying the tallest mountains and leaving polar regions 

bare. If the water should become lighter in an infini- 

in.il degree, or the world rotate more slowly, the 

B8 would be submerged and the equator become an 

Xo balance, turning to l0 \ {) of a grain, is 

re delicate than the poise of forces on the world. 

e has given us proof that the period of the earth's 

ial rotation has not changed -,, 1 ,,, of a second of time 

in tun thousand years. 

7 



146 A SOLAR SYSl'EJf. 



Tides. 



But there is an outside influence that is constantly 
acting upon the earth, and to which it constantly 
sponds. Two hundred and forty thousand miles from 
the earth is the moon, having -^ T the mass of the world. 
Its attractive influence on the earth causes the mov- 
able and nearer portions to hurry away from the more 
stable and distant, and heap themselves np on that part 
of the earth nearest the moon. Gravitation is inverse* 
ly as the square of the distance; hence the water on 
the surface of the earth is attracted more than the body 
of the earth, some parts of which are eight thousand 
miles farther off; hence the water rises on the side next 
the moon. But the earth, as a whole, is nearer the 
moon than the water on the opposite side, and being 
drawn more strongly, is taken away from the water, 
leaving it heaped np also on the side opposite to the 
moon. 

A subsidiary cause of tides is found in the revolution 
of the earth and moon about their common centre of 
gravity. Revolution about an axis through the centre 
of a sphere enlarges the equator by centrifugal for 
Revolution about an axis touching the surface of a flex- 
ible globe converts it into an egg-shaped body, with 
the longer axis perpendicular to the axis of revolution. 
In Fig. 56 the point of revolution is seen at the centre 
of gravity at G; hence, in the revolution of earth and 
moon as one, a strong centrifugal force is caused at D, 
and a less one at C. This gives greater height to the 
tides than the attraction of the moon alone could pro- 
duce. 



TIDES. 147 

If the earth had no axial revolution, the attractive 
nt where the tide rises would be carried around the 



a^r-m 



Fig. rti. 

earth once in twenty-seven days by the moon's revolu- 
tion about the earth. But since the earth revolves on 
axis, it presents a new section to the moon's attrac- 
tion every hour. If the moon were stationary, that 
would bring two high tides in exactly twenty -four 
hours; but as the moon goes forward, we need nearly 
twenty-five hours for two tides. 

The attractive influence of the sun also gives us a 
tide four-tenths as great as that of the moon. When 
these two influences of the sun and moon combine, as 
they do. in conjunction — when both bodies are on one 
the earth : or in opposition, sun and moon being 
opposite >ides of the earth — we have spring or in- 
creased tides. When the moon is in its first or third 
quarter. L >.. when a line from the moon to the earth 
ght angle with one from the sun to the earth, 
these influences antagonize one another, and we have 
• low ti<;< 
It i< easy to see that if, when the moon was drawing 
usual tide, the sun drew four-tenths of the water in 
ight angles with it. the moon's tide must be 
by so much lower. Because of the inertia of the water 



148 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

it does not yield instantly to the moon's influence, and 
the crest of the tide is some hours behind the advan- 
cing moon. 

The amount of tide in various places is affected by 
almost innumerable influence-, as distance of moon at 
its apogee or perigee; its position north, south, or at the 
equator; distance of earth from sun at perihelion and 
aphelion; the position of islands; the trend of conti- 
nents, etc. All eastern shores have far greater tides than 
western. As the earth rolls to the east it leaves the 
tide-crest under the moon to impinge on eastern shor 
hence the tides of from seventy-five to one hundred f< 
in the Bay of Fnndy. hakes and most seas are too small 
to have perceptible tides. The spring-tides in the Med- 
iterranean Sea are only about three inches. 

This constant ebb and flow of the great sea is a grand 
provision for its purification. Even the wind is sent to 
the sea to be cleansed. The sea washes vwvy shore, 
purifies every cove, bay, and river twice every twenty- 
four hours. All pntrescible matter liable to breed a 
pestilence is carried far from shore and sunk under 
fathoms of the never-stagnant sea. The distant moou 
lends its mighty power to carry the burdens of com- 
merce. She takes all the loads that can be floated on 
her flowing tides, and cheerfully carries them in oppo- 
site directions in successive journeys. 

It must be conceded that the profound est study has 
not mastered the whole philosophy of tides. There are 
certain facts which are apparent, but for an explanation 
of their true theory such man as Laplace, Newton, and 
Airy have labored in vain. There are plenty of other 
worlds still to conquer. 




Fig. 57.— Lunar Day. 






THE MO OX. 151 

THE MOON. 

New moon, • ; first quarter, 9 ; full moon, o ; last quarter, £. 

Extreme distance from the earth, 259,600 milos ; least, 
221,000 miles; mean, 240,000 miles. Diameter, 2164.6 miles 
[2153, Lockyer]. Revolution about the earth, 29.V days. Ax- 
ial revolution, same time. 

When the astronomer Ilerschel was observing the 
southern sky from the Cape of Good Hope, the most 
clever hoax was perpetrated that ever was palmed upon 
a credulous public. Some new and wonderful instru- 
ments were carefully described as having been used by 
that astronomer, whereby he was enabled to bring the 
moon so close that he could see thereon trees, houses, 
animals, and men-like human beings. He could even 
discern their movements, and gestures that indicated a 
peaceful race. The extent of the hoax will be perceived 
when it is stated that no telescope that we are now able 
to make reveals the moon more clearly than it would 
appear to the naked eye if it was one hundred or one 
hundred and fifty miles away. The distance at which 
a man can be seen by the unaided eye varies according 
to circumstances of position, background, light, and eye, 
but it is much inside of five miles. 

Since, however, the moon is our nearest neighbor, a 
member of our own family in fact, it is a most interest- 
ing object of study. 

A glance at its familiar face reveals its unequal illu- 
mination. All aires and races have seen a man in the 
moon. All lovers have SWOITI by its constancy, and 
v part of them have kept their oath-. Every twenty- 
nine or thirty days we Bee a Bllver crescent in the wot, 
and are -lad if it conies over tin; right shoulder — 60 



152 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

much tribute does habit pay to superstition. The next 
night it is thirteen degrees farther east from the sun. 
We note the stars it occults, or passes by, and leaves be- 
hind as it broadens its disk, till it rises full-orbed in the 
east when the sun sinks in the west. It is easy to see 
that the moon goes around the earth from west to ea>t. 
Afterward it rises later and smaller each night, till at 
length, lost from sight, it rises about the same time 
the sun, and soon becomes the welcome crescent new 
moon again. 

The same peculiarities are always evident in the visi- 
ble face of the moon; hence we know that it always 
presents the same side to the earth. Obviously it must 
make just one axial to one orbital revolution. Jlold 
any body before you at arm's-length, revolve it one- 
quarter around you until exactly overhead. If it has 
not revolved on an axis between the hands, another 
quarter of the surface is visible; but if in going up it is 
turned a quarter over, by the hands holding it steady, 
the same side is visible. Three causes enable us to 
see a little more than half the moon's surface: 1. The 
speed with which it traverses the ellipse of its orbit is 
variable. It sometimes gets ahead of us, sometimes be- 
hind, and we see farther around the front or back part 
2. The axis is a little inclined to the plane of its orbit, 
and its orbit a little inclined to ours; hence we see a 
little over its north pole, and then again over the south 
pole. 3. The earth being larger, its inhabitants see a 
little more than half-way around a smaller body. These 
causes combined enable us to see tV— of the moon's 
surface. Our eyes will never see the other side of the 
moon. If, now, being solid, her axial revolution could 



THE MOON, 153 

be increased enough to make one more revolution in 

two or three years, that difference between her axial 
and orbital revolution would give the future inhabitants 
of the earth a view of the entire circumference of the 
moon. Yet if the moon were once in a fluid state, or 
had oceans on the surface, the enormous tide caused by 
the earth would produce friction enough, as they moved 
<>\er the surface, to gradually retard the axial revolution 
till the two tidal elevations remained fixed toward and 
opposite the earth, and then the axial and orbital revo- 
lutions would correspond, as at present. In fact, we can 
prove that the form of the moon is protuberant toward 
the earth. Its centre of gravity is thirty-three miles be- 
yond its centre of magnitude, which is the same in ef- 
fect as if a mountain of that enormous height rose on 
the earth side. Hence any fluid, as water or air, would 
flow round to the other side. 

The mooirs day, caused by the sun's light, is 29£ 
times as long as ours. The sun shines unintermittingly 
for fifteen days, raising a temperature as fervid as boil- 
ing water. Then darkness and frightful cold for the 
ie time succeed, except on that half where the earth 
acts as a moon. The earth presents the same phases — 
scent, full, and gibbons — to the moon as the moon 
to us, and for the same causes. Lord Rosse has 

en enabled, by his six-foot reflector, to measure the 
difference of heat on the moon under the full blaze of 

noonday and midnight lie finds it to be no 1' 
than five hundred degrees. People not enjoying ex- 
trei temperature should shun a lunar residence. 

The jive- u- onl 3 much light as the >un. 

A Bky full of moons would scarcely make daylight. 

7 



154 



A SOLAR SYSTEM. 



There are no indications of air or water on the moon. 
When it occults a star it instantly shuts off the light 



$&&.>* 



i • 



*£ 1 


p> -°&* 


fe&k 





. 



mm* 



Fig. 58,— View of the Moon near the Third Quarter. From a Photograph by 
Professor Heury Draper. 

and as instantly reveals it again. An atmosphere would 
gradually diminish and reveal the light, and by ref r. 



i 



THE MOON. 155 

tion cause the star to be hidden in much loss time than 
the solid body of the moon would need to pass over it. 
If the moon ever had air and water, as it probably did, 
they are now absorbed in the porous lava of its sub- 
stance. 

Ti h acopie Appearance. 

Probably no one ever saw the moon by means of a 
•d telescope without a feeling of admiration and awe. 
Except at full-moon, we can see where the daylight 
Straggles with the dark along the line of the moon's 
sunrise or sunset. This line is called the terminator. 
It is broken in the extreme, because the surface is as 
rough as possible. In consequence of the small gravita- 
tion of the moon, utter absence of the expansive power 
of ice shivering the cliffs, or the levelling power of rains, 
precipices can stand in perpendicularity, mountains 

• t up like needles, and cav- _ 
ities three miles deep remain 
unfilled. The light of the 
sun falling on the rough body 
of the moon, shown in sec- 
tion (Fig. 59), illuminates the Fi g .».-niumlnattonofCrateisMd 
whole cavity at '/, part of the Peaks. 

one at //. casts a lung Bhadow from the mountain at 0, and 
touches the tip of the one at d, which appears to a distant 

server as a point of light beyond the terminator. As 

moon revolves the conical cavity, a is illuminated 

on the forward Bide only: the light creeps down the 

backward side of cavity b to the bottom; mountain c 

directly under the Ban and casts no Bhadow, and 

mountain d casts its long Bhadow over the plain. Enow- 

_ the time of revolution, and observing the change of 




156 



A SOLAR SYSTEM. 



illumination, we can easily measure the height of moun- 
tain and depth of crater. An apple, with excavatit 
and added prominences, revolved on its axis toward the 




light of a candle, admirably illustrates the crescent light 

that fills either side of the cavities and the shadows of 
the mountains on the plain. Xotice in Fig. 58 the ci 
cent forms to the right, showing cavities in abundance. 
The selenography of one side of the moon is much 
better known to us than the geography of the earth. 
Our maps of the moon are far more perfect than those 
of the earth; and the photographs of lunar objects by 
Messrs. Draper and De la Rue are wonderfully perfect, 






ECLIPSES. 



157 



1 the drawings of Padre Secchi equally so (Fig. 60). 
The least change recognizable from the earth must he 
Bpeedily detected. There are frequently reports of dis- 
coveries of volcanoes on the moon, but they prove to be 
illusions. The moon will probably look the same to 
Observers a thousand years hence as it does to-day. 
This little orb, that is only -g-y of the mass of the earth, 
g twenty-eight mountains that are higher than Mont 
lie, that "monarch of mountains," in Europe. 

Edipses. 

It is evident that if the plane of the moon's orbit were 
to correspond with that of the earth, as they all lie in 
the plane of the page (Fig. 61), the moon must pass 
between the centres of the earth and sun, and exactly 




Fig. CI.— BcHpC68; Sh&do W8 Of EftTtb and MOOD. 

behind the earth at every revolution. Such successive 

ami total darken in gs would greatly derange all affairs 

ndent on light. It is easily avoided. Venus does 



158 A SOLAR SYSTEM 

not cross the disk of the sun at every revolution, be- 
cause of the inclination of the plane of its orbit to that 
of the earth (see Fig. 41, p. 107). So the plane of the 
orbit of the moon is inclined to the orbit of the earth 
5° 8' 39"; hence the full-moon is often above or below 
the earth's shadow, and the earth is below or above the 
moon's shadow at new moon. It is as if the moon's or- 
bit were pulled up one-quarter of an inch from the pi 
behind the earth, and depressed as much below it be- 
tween the earth and the sun. The point where the or- 
bit of the moon penetrates the plane of the ecliptic is 
called a node. If a new moon occur when the line of 
intersection of the planes of orbits points to the sun, 
the sun must be eclipsed; if the full-moon occur, the 
moon must be eclipsed. In any other position the sun 
or moon will only be partially hidden, or no eclipse will 
occur. 

If the new moon be near the earth it will completely 
obscure the sun. A dime covers it if held close to the 
eye. It may be so far from the earth as to only par- 
tially hide the sun; and, if it cover the centre, leave a 
ring of sunlight on every side. This is called an annu- 
lar eclipse. Two such eclipses will occur this year ( 1^7'.'>. 
If the full-moon passes near the earth, or is at peri- 
it finds the cone of shadow cast by the earth larger, and 
hence the eclipse is greater; if it is far from the earth, 
or near apogee, the earth's shadow is smaller, and the 
eclipse less, or is escaped altogether. 

There is a certain periodicity in eclipses. Whenever 
the sun, moon, and earth are in a line, as in the total 
eclipse of July 29th, 1878, they will be in the same po- 
sition after the earth has made about eighteen re vol u- 



MARS. 159 

lions, and the moon two hundred and sixteen — that is, 
bteen years after. This period, however, is disre- 
garded by astronomers, and each eclipse calculated by 
itself to the accuracy of a second. 

How terrible is the fear of ignorance and superstition 

when the sun or moon appear to be in the process of 

-miction! how delightful are the joys of knowledge 

when its prophesies in regard to the heavenly bodies are 

being fulfilled! 

MARS. 

The god of war : its sign 3, spear and shield. 

Mean distance from the sun, 141,000,000 miles. Diame- 
ter, 4211 miles. Revolution, axial, 24h. 37m. 22.7s. ; orbital, 
686.98 days. Velocity per minute, 899 miles. Satellites, two- 

At intervals, on an average of two years one month 
and nineteen days, we find rising, as the sun goes down, 
reddest star in the heavens. Its brightness is ex- 
dingly variable; sometimes it scintillates, and some- 
times it shines with a steady light. Its marked pecu- 
liarities demand a close study. We find it to be Mars, 
god of war. Its orbit is far from circular. At 
rihelion it is 128,000,000 miles from the sun, and at 
aphelion 154,000,000; hence its mean distance is about 
141,000,000. So great a change in its distance from 
d easily accounts for the change in its brilliancy. 
'.\ if Mara and the earth revolved in circular orbits, 
one 141,000,000 miles from the sun, and the other 
,000, they would approach at conjunction within 
49,000,000 miles of each other, and at opposition be 
1,000 miles apart. But Mars at perihelion may 
be only 128,000,000 miles from the sun, and earth at 



160 



A SOLAR SYSTEM. 



aphelion may be 94,000,000 miles from the sun. They 
are, then, but 34,000,000 miles apart. This favorable 
opportunity occurs about once in seventy -nine yea 
At its last occurrence, in 1STT, Mars introduced to us 
his two satellites, that had never before been seen by 
man. In consequence of this greatly varying distance, 
the apparent size of Mars differs very much (Fig. 6 




Fig. 69. — Apparent Size of Man at Moan and Extreme Dial I 

Take a favorable time when the planet is near, also 
near overhead as it ever comes, so as to have as little 
atmosphere as possible to penetrate, and study the plan- 
et. The first thing that strikes the observer is a daz- 
zling spot of white near the pole which happens to he 
toward him, or at botli poles when the planet is so situ- 
ated that they can be seen. When the north pole ifl 
turned toward the sun the size of the spot sensibly di- 
minishes, and the spot at the south pole enlarges, and 
vice versa. Clearly they are ice-fields. Hence Mars has 
water, and air to carry it, and heat to melt ice. It is 
winter at the south pole when Mars is farthest from 
the sun ; therefore the ice-fields are larger than at the 
north pole. It is summer at the south pole when Mar- 
is nearest the sun. Hence its ice-fields in'ow smaller 



fi . l TEL L I TES ( > F M. I RS. 1 6 1 

than those of the north pole in its sn miner. Tin's car- 
rying of water from pole to pole, and melting of ice 
over such large areas, might give rise to uncomfortable 

currents in ocean and air; but very likely an inhabitant 
earth might be transported to the surface of Mare, 
and be no more surprised at what he observed there 
than if he went to some point of the earth to him un- 
known. Day and night would be nearly of the same 
length ; winter would linger longer in the lap of spring: 
Burumer would be one hundred and eighty -one days 
long: but as the seas are more intermingled with the 
land, and the divisions of land have less of continental 
magnitude, it may be conjectured that Mars might be a 
nfortable place of residence to beings like men. Per- 
haps the greatest surprise to the earthly visitor would 
to find himself weighing only four-tenths as much as 
usual, able to leap twice as high, and lift considerable 
bowlders. 

Satellites of Mars, 

The night of August 11th, 1S77. is famous in modern 
astronomy. Mars has been a special object of study in 
all ages; but on that evening Professor Ball, of Wash- 
ajton, discovered a satellite of Mars. On the 16th it 
ii again, and its orbital motion followed. ( )n the 
following night it was hidden behind the body of the 
net when the observation began, but at the calcu- 
lated time— at four o'clock in the morning -it emerged, 
and established its character a- a true iihm.ii, and not a 

■I star or asteroid. B *, however, never come 

another object soon emerged which proved 

m inner satellite. This is extraordinarily near 



162 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

the planet — only four thousand miles from the surface 
— and its revolution is exceedingly rapid. The short 
period hitherto known is that of the inner satellite of 
Saturn, 22h. 37m. The inner satellite of Mars makes 
its revolution in 7h. 39m. — a rapidity so much surpi 
ing the axial revolution of the planet itself, that it ri 
in the west and sets in the east, showing all phases of 
our moon in one night. The outer satellite is 12,572 
miles from Mars, and makes its revolution in 30h. 18m. 
Its diameter is six and a quarter miles; that of the in- 
ner one is seven and a half miles. This can be esti- 
mated only by the amount of light given. 

ASTEROIDS. 

Already discovered (1879), 192. Distances from the sun, 
from 200,000,000 to 315,000,000 miles. Diameters, from 20 
to 400 miles. Mass of aU, less than one-quarter of the earth. 

The sense of infinite variety among the countless 
number of celestial orbs has been growing rapidly upon 
us for half a century, and doubtless will grow much 
more in half a century to come. Just as we paused in 
the consideration of planets to consider meteors and 
comets, at first thought so different, so must we now 
pause to consider a ring of bodies, some of which are 
as small in comparison to Jupiter, the next planet, 
aerolites are compared to the earth. 

In 1800 an association of astronomers, suspecting that 
a planet might be found in the great distance between 
Mars and Jupiter, divided the zodiac into twenty-four 
parts, and assigned one part to each astronomer for 
a thorough search; but, before their organization could 
commence work, Piazzi, an Italian astronomer of Paler- 



ASTEROIDS. 103 

mo, found in Taurus a star behaving like a planet. In 

weeks it was lost in the rays of the sun. It was 

rediscovered on its emergence, and named Ceres. In 

March, 1802, a second planet was discovered by Olbers 

in the same gap between Mars and Jupiter, and named 

Pallas. Here was an embarrassment of richness. 01- 

- suggested that an original planet had exploded, 

and that more pieces could be found. More were 

found, but the theory is exploded into more pieces 

than a planet could possibly be. Up to 1879 one 

hundred and ninety-two have been discovered, with a 

prospect of more. Between 1871-75 forty-live were 

covered, showing that they are sought for with great 

skill. In the discovery of these bodies, our American 

•liomers, Professors AVatson and Peters, are without 

rs. 

Between Mars and Jupiter is a distance of some 

\ ,000 miles. Subtract 35,000,000 miles next to 

Mars and 50,000,000 miles next to Jupiter, and there is 

a zone 254,000,000 miles wide outside of which the 

roids never wander. If any ever did, the attraction 

Mars or Jupiter may have prevented their return. 

Since tlie orbits of Mare and Jupiter show no sign of 

ing affected by these bodies for a century past, it is 

probable that their number is limited, or at least that 

their combined mass does not approximate the size of a 

Professor Newcomb estimates that if all that 

now discovered were put into one planet, it would 

be over four hundred miles in diameter; and if a 

thousand more should exist, of the average Bize of those 

red Bince 1850, their addition would not increase 

r tu more than live hundred miles. 



164 



A SOLAR SYSTEM. 



That all these bodies, which differ from each other in 
no respect except in brilliancy, can be noted and fixed 
so as not to be mistaken one for another, and instantly 
recognized though not seen for a dozen years, is one of 
the highest exemplifications of the accuracy of astro- 
nomical observation. 

JUPITER. 

The king of the gods ; sign n, the bird of Jove. 

Distance from the sun, perihelion, 457,000,000 miles; aphe- 
lion, 503,000,000 miles. Diameter, equatorial, 87,500 miles; 
polar, 82,500 miles. Volume, 1300 earths. Mass, 213 earths. 
Axial revolution, 9h. 55m 20s. Orbital revolution, 11 years 
317 days. Velocity, 483.6 miles per minute. 

Jupiter rightly wears the name of the "giant planet." 
His orbit is more nearly circular than most smaller 




Fig. 03.— Jupiter as seen by the great Washington Telescope. Drawn by Mr. 

Holden. 

planets. He could not turn short corners with facility. 
We know little of his surface. His spots and belts are 



SATELLITES OF JUPITER. 105 

changeable as clouds, which they probably arc. Sonic 
ts may be slightly self-luminous, but not the part of 
the planet we see. It is covered with an enormous 
depth of atmosphere. Since the markings in the belts 
move about one hundred miles a day, the Jovian tern- 
's are probably not violent. It is, however, a singu- 
lar and unaccountable fact, as remarked by Arago, that 
its trade-winds move in an opposite direction from ours. 
Jupiter receives only one twenty-seventh as much light 
and heat from the sun as the earth receives. Its lighter 
density, being about that of water, indicates that it still 
has internal heat of its own. Indeed, it is likely that 
this planet has not yet cooled so as to have any solid 
crust, and if its dense vapors could be deposited on the 
surface, its appearance might be more suggestive of the 
Bon than of the earth. 

Satellites of Jupiter. 

In one respect Jupiter seems like a minor sun — he is 
royally attended by a group of planets: we call them 
moons. This system is a favorite object of study to 
ssessinga telescope. Indeed. I have known 
a man who could see these moons with the naked eye, 
and give their various positions without mistake. Gali- 
first revealed them to ordinary men. We see their 
te so nearly on the edge that the moons .-com t<> be 
ling buck and forth across and behind the disk, and 
t" varying distances on either Bide. Fig. ♦»! is the rep- 
utation of their appearance at successive observa- 
, November, 1878. Their motion is so swift, and 
of comparison by one another and the planet 
so excellent, that they can : to change their plac< 



166 



A SOLAR SYSTEM 




Pig. 64 —a. Various Positions of Jupiter's Moons; l>. Greatest Elongation of each 

I lift*. 

be occulted, emerge from shadow, and eclipse the plan- 
et, in an hour's watching. 



II I Mi \ r8 OF JUPITEH - BAT1 LLITB8. 



I. Io 

II. Enropn 

I II. Ganvmede 

IV. Callisto 


Mean Distance 
from Jupiter. 


Sidereal Period 


Diameter. 


Mil.*. 

260,000 

41 1,000 

661,000 

1,162,000 


Hi*. Min. 

1 Lfi 
8 18 \:\ 
7 8 59 
16 18 6 


2,852 
2,099 
3, t 
2,929 



It is seen by the above table that all these mooni 
are larger than ours, one larger than Mercury, and the 
asteroids are hardly large enough to make respectable 
moons for them. They differ in color : I. and II. have 
a bluish tinge; III. a yellow; and IV. is red. The 
amount of light given by these satellites varies in the 
most sudden and inexplicable manner. Perhaps it may 
be owing to the different distributions of land and wa- 
ter on them. The mass of all of them is .000171 of 
Jupiter. 



8ATUEN. 107 

It tlie Jovian system were the only one in existence, 
it would be a surprising object of wonder and study. 
A monster planet, 85,000 miles in diameter, hung on 
DOthing, revolving its equatorial surface forty-five miles 
l minute, holding four other worlds in steady orbits, 
BOine of them at a speed of seven hundred miles a min- 
ute, and the whole system carried through space at five 
hundred miles a minute. Yet the discovery of all this 
display of power, skill, and stability is only reading the 
syllables of the vast literature of wisdom and 
power. 

SATURN. 

The god of time ; si^n ? , his scythe. 

Mean distance from the sun, 881,000,000 miles. Diameter, 
polar, 66,500 miles; equatorial, 73,300 miles. Axial revolu- 
tion, lOh. 14m. Periodic time, 29 1- years. Moons, eight. 

The human mind has used Saturn and the two known 
planets beyond for the last 200 years as a gymnasium. 
It has exercised itself in comprehending their enormous 
distances in order to clear those greater spaces, to where 
the Btars are set; it lias exercised its ingenuity at inter- 
ring appearances which signify something other than 
em. in order that it may no longer he deluded 
by any sunrises into a belief that the heavenly dome 
a round the earth. That a wandering point of light 
iM develop into such amazing grandeurs under tin* 
pe, is as unexpected as that every tiny seed should 
a- peculiar marking- and color.- under the microscope. 
re are certain things that are easy to determine, 
h as size, density, periodic time, velocity, etc.; hut 
other things are exceedingly difficult t<» determine. It 
lires long sight t" read when the book is held 



108 



A SOLAR SYSTEM. 



800,000,000 miles away. Only very few, if more than 
two, opportunities have been found to determine the 
time of Saturn's rotation. On the evening of December 




Fig. 65.— View of Saturn and hi* Rll 

7th, 1870, Professor Hall observed a brilliant white spot 
suddenly show itself on the body of this planet. It was 
as if an eruption of white hot matter burst up from the 
interior. It spread eastward, and remained bright till 
January, when it faded. No such opportunity for get- 
ting a basis on which to found a calculation of the time 
of the rotation of Saturn has occurred since Sir William 
HerscheFs observations; and, very singularly, the two 
times deduced wonderfully coincide — that of Herschel 
being lOh. 16m., that of Mr. Hall being lOh. 11m. 



SATURN'S RINGS. 169 

The density of Saturn is less than that of water, and 
its velocity of rotation so great that centrifugal force 
antagonizes gravitation to such an extent that bodies 
weigh on it about the same as on the earth. All the 
tine fancies of the habitability of this vaporous world, 
all the calculations of the number of people that could 
live on the square miles of the planet and its enormous 
rings, are only fancy. Nothing could live there with 
inure brains than a fish, at most. It is a world in for- 
mative processes. We cannot hear the voice of the 

eator there, but we can see matter responsive to the 
•e. and moulded by his word. 

J Hugs of Saturn. 

The eve and mind of man have worked out a prob- 
lem of marvellous difficulty in finding a true solution 
of the strange appearance of the rings. Galileo has 
the immortal honor of first having seen something pe- 
culiar about this planet. He wrote to the Duke of 
Tuscany, "When I view Saturn it seems tricorps. The 

itral body seems the largest. The two others, situated, 
the one on the east, and the other on the west, seem to 
touch it. They are like two supporters, who help old 

turn on his way, and always remain at his side/" 
few years later, the rings having turned from 
view, be siid. " It is possible that some demon mocked 
:" and he refused to look any more. 

Buyghens, in March, L655, solved the problem of the 
triform appearance of Saturn, He saw them as han- 

- on the two sides. In a year they had disappeared, 

! the planet was as round a- it seemed to Galileo in 
1612. lit- (lid not, however, despair ; and in October, 



170 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

1656, he was rewarded by seeing them appear again. 
He wrote of Saturn, "It is girdled by a thin plain ri 
nowhere touching, inclined to the ecliptic." 

Since that time discoveries have succeeded one an- 
other rapidly. " We have seen by degrees a ring ev< >lved 
out of a triform planet, and the great division of the 
ring and the irregularities on it brought to light. En- 
celadus, and coy Mimas, faintest of twinklers, are caught 
by Ilerschers giant mirrors. And he, too, first of men, 
realizes the wonderful tenuity of the ring, along which 
he saw those satellites travelling like pearls strung on a 
silver thread. Then Bond comes on the field, and fur- 
nishes evidence to show that we must multiply the 
number of separate rings we know not how many fold. 
And here we reach the golden age of Saturnian discov- 
ery, when Bond, with the giant refractor of Cambridge. 
and .Dawes, with his 6-J-inch Munich glass, first beheld 
that wonderful dark semi-transparent ring, which still 
remains one of the wonders of our system. But the 
end is not yet: on the southern surface of the ring, ere 
summer fades into autumn, Otto Struve in turn comes 
upon the field, detects, as Dawes had previously done, a 
division even in the dark ring, and measures it, while it 
is invisible to LasselFs mirror — a proof, if one were need- 
ed, of the enormous superiority possessed by refractors 
in such inquiries. Then we approach 1S61, when the 
ring plane again passes through the earth, and Struve 
and Wray observe curious nebulous appearances."* 

Our opportunities for seeing Saturn vary greatly. A> 
the earth at one part of its orbit presents its south pule 

* Lockyer. 



SATURN'S RINGS, 171 

the Bun, then its equator, then the north pole, so Sat- 
urn ; and we, in the direction of the sun, see the south 

e of the rings inclined at an angle of 27°; next the 
edge of the rings, like a line thread of light; then the 
north side at a similar inclination. On February 7th, 
l s 7 s . Saturn was between Aquarius and Pisces, with the 

ge of the ring to the sun. In 1SS5, the planet be- 
ing in Taurus, the south side of the rings will be seen 
at the greatest advantage. From 1SS1 till 1S85 all cir- 
cumstances will combine to give most favorable studies 
of Saturn. Meanwhile study the picture of it. The 
outer ring is narrow, dark, showing hints of another di- 
vision, sometimes more evident than at others, as if it 
were in a state of flux. The inner, or second, ring is 
much brighter, especially on the outer edge, and shading 
off to the dusky edge next to the planet. There is no 

n of division into a third dusky innermost ring, as 

- plainly seen by Bond. This, too, may be in a state 

Dfflox. 

The markings of the planet are delicate, difficult of 
detection, and are not like those stark zebra stripes that 
so often represented. 
The distance between the planet and the second ring 
to be diminished one-half since lo\>7, and this 
ring has doubled its breadth in the same time. Some 
:his difference may be owing to our greater tele- 
scopic power, enabling ua to see the ring closer t<> the 
net ; but in all probability the ring i> closing in npon 
the centra] body, and will touch it by a.d. lM.~><>. Thus 
the whole ring must ultimately fall upon the planet, 
I «»f making a satellite. 
We are anxious to learn tin- nature of such a ring. 



172 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

Laplace mathematically demonstrated that it cannot be 
uniform and solid, and survive. Professor Peirce show- 
ed it could not be fluid, and continue. Then Profe- 
Maxwell showed that it must be formed of clouds of 
satellites too small to be seen individually, and too near 
together for the spaces to be discerned, unless, perhaps, 
we may except the inner dark ring, where they are 
not near enough to make it positively luminous. In- 
deed, there is some evidence that the meteoroids are far 
enough apart to make the ring partially transparent 

We look forward to the opportunities for observation 
in 1882 with the brightest hope that these difficult 
questions will be solved. 

Satellites qf Saturn. 

The first discovered satellite of Saturn seen by 
Iluyghens was in 1655, and the last by the Bonds, fa- 
ther and son, of Cambridge, in 1848. These are eight 
in number, and are named : 

Distant from Saturn's centre. 

I. Mimas 119,726 miles. 

II. Enceladus 153,630 " 

III. Tethys 190,225 M 

IV. Dione 248,670 " 

V. Rhea 340,320 " 

VI. Titan 788,915 " 

VH. Hyperion 954,160 " 

VIII. Japetus 2,292,790 " 

Titan can be seen by almost any telescope ; I., II., and 
III., only by the most powerful instrument. All ex- 
cept Japetus revolve nearly in the plane of the ring. 
Like the moons of Jupiter, they present remarkable and 
unaccountable variations of brilliancy. An inspection 






URANUS. 173 

of the table reveals either an expectation that another 
moon will be discovered between V. and VI., and about 
three more between VII. and VIII., or that these gape 
may be tilled with groups of invisible asteroids, as the 
gap between Mars and Jupiter. This will become more 
evident by drawing Saturn, the rings, and orbits of 
the moons all as circles, on a scale of 10,000 miles to 
the inch. Saturn will be in the centre, 70,000 miles in 
diameter: then a gap, decreasing twenty -nine miles 
I year to the first ring, of, say, 10,000 miles ; a dark 
ring 9000 miles wide; next the brightest ring 18,300 
miles wide: then a gap of 1750 miles; then the outer 
ring 10,000 miles wide; then the orbits of the satellites 
in order. 

If the scenery of Jupiter is magnificent, that of Saturn 
must be sublime. If one could exist there, he might 
wander from the illuminated side of the rings, under 
their magnificent arches, to the darkened side, see the 

ift whirling moons; one of them presenting ten times 
the disk of the earth's moon, and so very near as to en- 
able him to watch the advancing line of light that marks 
the lunar morning journeying round that orb. 

UBANU 

Si_Mi H ; the initial of Hnrpchel, and sign of tho world. 

Distance from the sun, 1,771,000,000 milea Diameter, 31,700 
miles. Axial revolution unknown. Orbital, 84 years. Ve- 
locity per minute, 252 miles. Moons, four. 

Uranus was presented to the knowledge of man as 

unexpected reward for honest work. It was first 

mistaken by its discoverer for a comet, a mere cloud of 

: but it proved to be a world, and extended the 



174 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

boundaries of our solar system, in the moment of its 
discovery, as much as all investigation had done in all 
previous ages. 

Sir William Herschel was engaged in mapping stars 
in 1781, when he first observed its sea-green disk. He 
proposed to call it Georgium Sidits, in honor of his 
king; but there were too many names of the gods in 
the sky to allow a mortal name to be placed among 
them. It was therefore called Uranus, since being the 
most distant body of our system, as was supposed, it 
might appropriately bear the name of the oldest god. 
Finding anything in God's realms of infinite riches 
ought not to lead men to regard that as final, but as a 
promise of more to follow. 

This planet had been ^Qen five times by Flams! 
before its character was determined — once nearly a cen- 
tury before — and eight times by he Monnier. Tin 
names, which might easily have been associated with a 
grand discovery, are associated with careless observa- 
tion. Eyes were made not only to be kept open, but 
to have minds behind them to interpret their visions, 
Herschel thought he discovered six moons belonging 
to Uranus, but subsequent investigation has limited the 
number to four. Two of these are seen with great dif- 
ficulty by the most powerful telescope-. 

If the plane of our moon's orbit were tipped up to 
a greater inclination, revolving it on the line of nodes 
as an axis until it was turned S5°, the moon, still con- 
tinuing on its orbit in that plane, would go over the 
poles instead of about the equator, and would go back 
to its old path when the plane was revolved 1S0°; but 
its revolution would now be from east to west, or ret- 



NEPTUNR 175 

jrade. Tlic plane of the moons of Uranus has been 

thus inclined till it has passed 10° beyond the pole, 
and the moons 5 motions are retrograde as regards other 
known celestial movements. How Uranus itself revolves 
is not known. There are more worlds to conquer. 

NEPTUNE. 

God of the sea ; si^n T 4_ f , his trident. 

Distance from the sun, 2,775,000,000 miles. Diameter, 
34.500 miles. Velocity per minute, 201.6 miles. Axial rev- 
olution unknown. Orbital, 164.78 years. One moon. 

Men sought for Neptune as the heroes sought the 

den fleece. The place of Uranus had been mapped 
for nearly one hundred years by these accidental ob- 

vations. On applying the law of universal gravita- 
tion, a slight discrepancy was found between its com- 
puted place and its observed place. This discrepancy 

- exceedingly slight. In 1S30 it was only 20"; in 
1840, 190 : in 1884, 2'. Two stars that were 2' apart 
would appear as one to the keenest unaided eye, but such 
an err<»r must not exist in astronomy. Years of work 
were given to its correction. Mr. John C. Adams, of 

abridge, England, finding that the attraction of a 
planet exterior to Uranus would account for its irregu- 
larities, computed the place of bucIi a hypothetical body 
with singular exactness in October, 1841; but neither 
he nor the royal astronomer Airy looked for it. An- 
other opportunity for immortality was heedlessly neg- 
Meanwhile, M. Le vender, of Paris, was working 

the same problem. In the summer of 1M**> Lever* 

:• announced the place of the exterior planet. The 
conclusion was in striking coincidence with that of Mr. 



176 



A SOLAR SYSTEM. 



Clark. Mr. Challis commenced to search for the planet 
near the indicated place, and actually saw and mapped 
the star August 4th, 1840, but did not recognize its 
planetary character. Dr. Galle, of Berlin, on the 23d 
of September, 1840, found an object with a planetary 
disk not plotted on the map of stars. It was the 
sought- for world. It would seem easy to find a world 
seventy-six times as large as the earth, and easy to rec- 
ognize it when seen. The fact that it could be discov- 
ered only by such care conveys an overwhelming idea 
of the distance where it moves. 

The effect of these perturbations by an exterior plan- 
et is understood from Fig. 66. Uranus and Neptune 

were in conjunction, as 
shown, in L822. But in 
1820 it had been found 
that Fran us was too far 
from the sun, and too much 
accelerated. Since 1800, 
Neptune, in his orbit from 
V to E, had been hasten- 
ing Uranus in his orbit 
from C to B, and also 
Pig. ec-Perturbation of Uranus. drawing it farther from 

the sun. After 1S22, Neptune, in passing from E to D, 
had been retarding Uranus in his orbit from B to A. 

We have seen it is easy to miss immortality. There 
is still another instance. Lalande saw Neptune on 
May 8th and 10th, 1795, noted that it had moved a lit- 
tle, and that the observations did not agree ; but, suppos- 
ing the first was wrong, carelessly missed the glory of 
once more doubling the bounds of the empire of the sun. 




NEPTUNK 177 

Ir is time to pause and review our knowledge of this 
jtcm. The first view reveals a moon and earth en- 
dowed with a force of inertia going on in space in 
straight lines; but an invisible elastic cord of attraction 
holds them together, just counterbalancing this tenden- 
cy to fly apart, and hence they circle round their centre 
of gravity. The revolving earth turns every part of its 
surface to the moon in each twenty-four hours. By an 
axial revolution in the same time that the moon goes 
round the earth, the moon holds the same point of its 
surface constantly toward the earth. If we were to add 
one, two, four, eight moons at appropriate distances, the 
result would be the same. There is, however, another 
attractive influence — that of the sun. The sun attracts 
both earth and moon, but their nearer affection for 
each other keeps them from going apart. They both, 
revolving on their axes and around their centre of grav- 
ity, sweep in a vastly wider curve around the sun. Add 
a- many moons as has Jupiter or Saturn, the result is 
the same — an orderly carrying of worlds through space. 
There lies the unsupported sun in the centre, nearer 
t<> infinity in all its capacities and intensities of force than 
our minds can measure, tilling the whole dome to where 
the Btar8 arc set with light, heat, and power. It holds 

five Bmall worlds — Vulcan, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and 
re — within a space whose radius it would require a 
locomotive half a thousand years to traverse. It next 
holds Borne indeterminate number of asteroids, and the 
it Jupiter, equal in volume to 13,000 earths. It 
holds Saturn. Uranus, and Neptune, and all their various- 
ly related satellites and rings. The two thoughts that 
overwhelm nfl are distance and power. The period of 



178 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 

man's whole history is not sufficient for an express train 
to traverse half the distance to Neptune. Thought wea- 
ries and fails in seeking to grasp such distances ; it can 
scarcely comprehend one million miles, and here are 
thousands of them. Even the wings of imagination 
grow weary and droop. When we stand on that outer- 
most of planets, the very last sentinel of the outposts of 
the king, the very sun grown dim and small in the dis- 
tance, we have taken only one step of the infinite dis- 
tance to the stars. They have not changed their rela- 
tive position — they have not grown brighter by our ap- 
proach. Neptune carries us round a vast circle about 
the centre of the dome of stars, hut we seem no nearer 
its sides. In visiting planets, we have been only \isit imr 
next-door neighbors in the street- <>f a seaport town. 
We know that there are similar neighbors about Sirius 
and Arcturus, but a vast sea rolls between. As we said, 
we stand with the outermost sentinel; but into the great 
void beyond the king of day sends his comets as scouts, 
and they fly thousands of years without for one instant 
missing the steady grasp of the power of the sun. It is 
nearer almightiness than we are able to think. 

If we cannot solve the problems of the present exig- 
ence of worlds, how little can we expect to fathom the 
unsoundablo depths of their creation and development 
through ages measureless to man ! Yet the very diffi- 
culty provokes the most ambitious thought. We toil 
at the problem because it has been hitherto unsolvable. 
Every error we make, and discover to be such, helps 
toward the final solution. Every earnest thinker who 
climbs the shining worlds as steps to a higher thought 
is trying to solve the problem God has given us to do. 



IX. 

THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

u And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon 
the face of the deep.'' — Genesis i. 2. 



"A dark 
Illimitable ocean, without hound. 
Without dimension, where Length, breadth, on J height, 

And time, and place are lost." — MlLTOK. 

"It is certain that matter is somehow directed, controlled, and ar- 
ranged ; while no material forces or properties are known to he capable 
of discharging such functions." — LlONBL Mi.au:. 

"The laws of nature do not account for their own origin." — John- 
Stuart Mill. 



THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 1S1 



IX. 
THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

The method by which the solar system came into its 
present form was sketched in vast outline by Moses. 
Be gave us the fundamental idea of what is called 
the nebular hypothesis. Swedenborg, that prodigal 
dreamer of vagaries, in 1734 threw out some conject- 
ure of the way in which the outlines were to be filled 
up : ]>uffoii followed him closely in 1749 ; Kant sought 

give it an ideal philosophical completeness, as he said, 
u not as the result of observation and computation," but 

evolved out of his own consciousness; and Laplace 
sought to settle it on a mathematical basis. 

It has been modified greatly by later writers, and 
most receive still greater modifications before it can be 

tepted by the best scientists of to-day. It has been 
called "the grandest generalization of the human mind f 
and if it shall finally be so modified as to pass from a 

itative hypothesis to an accepted philosophy, declar- 
ing the modes of a divine worker rather than the necefr 
>f blind force, it will still be worthy of that high 
distinction. 

Let it be clearly noted that it never proposes to do 

re than to trace a portion of the mode of working 

which brought the universe from one Btage to another. 

ick to a definite point, never to absolute 

ginning, nor to nothingness. It takes matter from 



182 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

the hand of the unseen power behind, and merely notes 
the progress of its development. It finds the clay in 
the hands of an intelligent potter, and sees it whirl in 
the process of formation into a vessel. It is not in any 
sense necessarily atheistic, any more than it is to affirm 
that a tree grows by vital processes in the sun and dew, 
instead of being arbitrarily and instantly created. The 
conclusion reached depends on the spirit of the ob- 
server. Newton could say, "This most beautiful system 
of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from 
the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and power- 
ful being!" Still it is well to recognize that some of its 
most ardent defenders have advocated it as materialis- 
tic. And Laplace said of it to Napoleon, kv I have no 
need of the hypothesis of a god." 

The materialistic statement of the theory is tins : that 
matter is at first assumed to exist as an infinite cloud 
of fire-mist, dowered with power latent therein to grow 
of itself into every possibility of world, flower, animal, 
man, mind, and affection, without any interference or 
help from without. But it requires far more of the Di- 
vine Worker than any other theory, lie must till mat- 
ter with capabilities to take care of itself, and this would 
tax the abilities of the Infinite One far more than a con- 
stant supervision and occasional interference. Instead 
of making the vase in perfect form, and coloring it with 
exquisite beauty by an ever-present skill, he must en- 
dow the clay with power to make itself in perfect form, 
adorn itself with delicate beauty, and create other vae 

The nebular hypothesis is briefly this : All the mat- 
ter composing all the bodies of the sun, planets, and 
satellites once existed in an exceedino-lv diffused state; 



THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS, L83 

■er than any gas with which we are acquainted, filling 

a -pare larger than the orbit of Neptune. Gravitation 

dually contracted this matter into a condensing globe 

of immense extent. Some parts would naturally be 
denser than others, and in the course of contraction a 
rotary motion, it is affirmed, would be engendered Ro- 
tation would flatten the globe somewhat in the line of 
axis. Contracting still more, the rarer gases, aided 
by centrifugal force, would be left behind as a ring that 
w«»uld ultimately be separated, like Saturn's ring, from 
the retreating body. There would naturally be some 
places in this ring denser than others ; these would grad- 
ually absorb all the ring into a planet, and still revolve 

•ut the central mass, and still rotate on its own axis, 
throwing off rings from itself. Thus the planet Nep- 
tune would be left behind in the first sun-ring, to make 
one moon; the planet Uranus left in the next sun- 
ring, to make its four moons from four successive plan- 
et-rings: Saturn, with its eight moons and three rinirs 

• made into moons, is left in the third sun-ring; and 
n down to Vulcan. 

The outer planets would cool off first, become inhab- 
itable, and, as the sun contracted and they radiated their 

n heat, become refrigerated and left behind by the 

retreating sun. Of course the outer planets wonld 

-lowly : but ae that portion of the sun which gave 

■m their motion drew in toward the centre, keeping 
Int.- speed, and revolving in the lessening circles 

>ntracting body, it would give the faster motion 

3 try to be imparted to Earth, Mercury, and Vulcan. 

The four great cla* facts confirmatory of this 

hypothesis are as follows: 1 >t. All the planets move 



184 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

iii the same direction, and nearly in the same plane, as 
if thrown off from one equator; 2d. The motions of the 
satellites about their primaries are mostly in the same 
direction as that of their primaries about the sun ; 3d. 
The rotation of most of these bodies on their axes, and 
also of the sun, is in the same direction as the motion 
of the planets about the sun ; 4th. The orbits of the 
planets, excluding asteroids, and their satellites, have but 
a comparatively small eccentricity ; 5th. Certain nebulae 
are observable in the heavens which are not yet con- 
densed into solids, bat arc still bright gas. 

The materialistic evolutionist takes up the idea of a 
universe of material world-stuff without form, and void, 
but so endowed as to develop itself into orderly worlds, 
and adds to it this exceeding advance, that when soil, 
sun, and chemical laws found themselves properly re- 
lated, a force in matter, latent for a million eons in the 
original cloud, comes forward, and dead matter becomes 
alive in the lowest order of vegetable life; there takes 
place, as Herbert Spencer says,"a change from an indefi- 
nite, incoherent homogeneity, into a definite, coherent 
heterogeneity, through continuous differentiation and 
integration.'" The dead becomes alive; matter passes 
from unconsciousness to consciousness; passes up from 
plant to animal, from animal to man ; takes on power to 
think, reason, love, and adore. The theistic evolution- 
ist may think that the same process is gone through, 
but that an ever-present and working God superin- 
tends, guides, and occasionally bestows a new endow- 
ment of power that successively gives life, conscious- 
ness, mental, affectional, and spiritual capacity. 

Is this world-theory true? and if so, is either of the 



Til K NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 185 

evolution theories true, also? If the first evolution 
theory is true, the evolved man will hardly know which 
to adore most, the Being that could so endow matter, or 
the matter capable of such endowment. 

There are some difficulties in the way of the accept- 
ance of the nebular hypothesis that compel many of 
the most thorough scientists of the day to withhold 
their assent to its entirety. The latest, and one of the 
most competent writers on the subject, Professor New- 

itb, who is a mathematical astronomer, and not an 
\ theorist, evolving the system of the universe from 
the deptli of his own consciousness, says : " Should any 
one be sceptical as to the sufficiency of these laws to 
• lint for the present state of things, science can 
furnish no evidence strong enough to overthrow his 
doubts until the sun shall be found to be growing 
tiler by actual measurement, or the nebulae be act- 
ually seen to condense into stars and systems." In 

e of the most elaborate defences of the theory, it is 

Sjued that the hypothesis explains why only one of 
the four planets nearest the sun can have a moon, and 
why there can be no planet inside of Mercury. The 
discovery of the two satellites to Mars and of the planet 
Vulcan makes it all the worse for these facts. 

Some of the objections to the theory should be 

known by every thinker. Laplace must have the cloud 

"diffused in consequence of excessive heat," etc. Belm- 

holtz, in order to account for the heat of the COntract- 

Bun, must have the cloud relatively cold. How he 

Rnd his followers diffused the cloud without heat is not 

ted. 

next difficulty is that of rotation. The laws 



186 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

of science compel a contraction into one non-rotating 
body — a central sun, indeed, but no planets about it. 
Laplace cleverly evades the difficulty by not taking 
from the hand of the Creator diffused gas, but a sun 
with an atmosphere filling space to the orbit of Nip- 
tune, and already in revolution. He says: "It is foar 
millions to one that all motions of the planets, rotati* 
and revolutions, were at once imparted by an original 
common cause, of which we know neither the nature 
nor the epoch." Helmholtz Bays of rotation, " the ex- 
istence of which must be assumed." Professor New- 
comb says that the planets would not be arranged 
now, each one twice as far from the sun as the next 
interior one, and the outer ones made first, but that 
all would be made into planet- at once, and the small 
inner ones quite likely to cool off more rapidly. 

It is a very serious difficulty that at least one .satel- 
lite does not revolve in the right direction. How Xe[>- 
tune or Uranus could throw their moons backward from 
its equator is not easily accounted for. It is at le 
one Parthian arrow at the system, not necessarily fatal, 
but certainly dangerous. 

A greater difficulty is presented by the recently dis- 
covered satellites of Mars. The inner one goes round 
the planet in one-third part of the time of the latti 
revolution. How Mars could impart three times the 
speed to a body flying off its surface that it has itself, 
has caused several defenders of the hypothesis to rush 
forward with explanations, but none with anything 
more than mere imaginary collisions with some comet. 
It is to be noticed that accounting for three times the 
speed is not enough; for as Mars shrunk away from the 



THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. L87 

ring that formed that satellite, it ought itself to attain 
more speed, as the sun revolves faster than its planets, 
and the earth faster than its moon. In defending the 
hypothesis, Mitchel said: "Suppose we had discovered 
that it required more time for Saturn or Jupiter to ro- 
tate on their axes than for their nearest moon to re- 
volve round them in its orbit ; this would have falsified 
the theory.-' It is also asserted that the newly discover- 
ed planet Vulcan makes an orbital in less time than the 
sun makes an axial revolution. 

In regard to one Martial moon, Professor Kirkwood, 
on whom Proctor conferred the highest title that could 
be conferred, " the modern Kepler," says: "Unless some 
explanation can be given, the short period of the inner 
ellite will be doubtless regarded as a conclusive argu- 
ment against the nebular hypothesis." If gravitation 
sufficient to account for the various motions of the 
heavenly bodies, we have a perplexing problem in the 
r known as 1S30 Goombridge, now in the Hunting 
t P>ootes. It is thought to have a speed of two 
hundred miles per second — a velocity that all the 
known matter in the universe could not give to the star 
by all it< combined attraction. Neither could all that 
•action stop the motion of the star, or bond it into 
an orbit. It.- motion must be accounted for on some 
hypothesis other than the nebular. 

The nebulae which we are able to observe are not al- 
>nfirmatory of the hypothesis under consider- 
in. Tiny have the most fantastic Bbapes,as if they 
had no relation to rotating Buns in the formative stag 
Tin _ ps in the middle, where they ought 

st. Mr. Piumer, in the Natural Selena Ii<- 



188 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

view, says, in regard to the results of the spectroscopic 
revelations: "We are furnished with distinct proof that 
the gases so examined are not only of nearly equal den- 
sity, but that they exist in a low state of tension. Thu 
fact is fatal to the nebular theory" 

In the autumn of 1876 a star blazed out in Cygnus, 
which promised to throw a flood of light on the qu 
tion of world-making. Its spectrum was like some of 
the fixed stars. It probably Mazed out by condensation 
from some previously invisible nebula. But its brill- 
iancy diminished swiftly, when it ought to have taken 
millions of years to cool. If the theory was true, it 
ought to have behaved very differently. It should 
have regularly condensed from gas to a solid sun by 
slow process. But, worst of all, after being a star awhile, 
it showed unmistakable proofs of turning into a cloud- 
mist — a star into a nebula, instead of via versa. A | 
sible explanation will be considered under variable stars. 

Such are a few of the many difficulties in the way of 
accepting the nebular hypothesis, as at present explain- 
ed, as being the true mode of development of the solar 
system. Doubtless it has come from a hot and diffused 
condition into its present state ; but when such men as 
Proctor, Newcomb, and Kirkwood see difficulties that 
cannot be explained, contradictions that cannot be rec- 
onciled by the principles of this theory, surely lesser 
men are obliged to suspend judgment, and render the 
Scotch verdict of "not proven." Whatever truth there 
may be in the theory will survive, and be incorporated 
into the final solution of the problem ; which solution 
will be a much grander generalization of the human 
mind than the nebular hypothesis. 



THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 189 

Of some things we feel very sure: that matter was 

v without form and void, and darkness rested on the 

e of the mighty deeps; that, instead of chaos, we have 

now cosmos and beauty : and that there is some proc< 

by which matter lias been brought from one state to 

the other. Whether, however, the nebular hypothesis 

lays down the road travelled to this transfiguration, we 

are not sure. Some of it seems like solid rock, and 

ie like shifting quicksand. Doubtless there is a 

.1 from that chaos to this fair cosmos. The nebular 

hypothesis has surveyed, worked, and perfected many 

long reaches of this road, but the rivers are not bridged, 

the chasms not filled, nor the mountains tunnelled. 

When men attempt to roll the hypothesis of evolu- 
tion along the road of the nebular hypothesis of worlds, 
and even beyond to the production of vegetable and 
animal life, mind and affection, the gaps in the road 
►me evident, and disastrous. 
A soul that has reached an adoration for the Supreme 
'her cares not how he has made him. Doubtless the 
v God chose was the best. It is as agreeable to have 
n thought of and provided for in the beginning, to 
have had a myriad ages of care, and to have come from 
higher existent life at last, as to have been made at 
■••. by a single act. out of dust. The one who is made 
to say to the Maker, " Why hast thon formed mo 
in this or that manner?" We only wi>h the question 
ed in what manner wo were really made. 
Evolution, without e<»ii>tanr superintendence and oo- 
1 new inspiration of power, finds some tremen- 
Dfl chasms in the r<>a<l it travels. These must be span- 
I by the power of a present God or the airy imagina- 



190 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS 

tion of man. Dr. McCosh has happily enumerated some 
of these tremendous gaps over which mere force cannot 
go. Given, then, matter with mechanical power only, 
what are the gaps between it and spirituality ( 

"1. Chemical action cannot be produced by mechan- 
ical power. 

" 2. Life, even in the lowest forms, cannot be pro- 
duced from unorganized matter. 

" 3. Protoplasm can be produced only by living mat- 
ter. 

"4. Organized matter is made up of colls, and can be 
produced only by cells. Whence the first cell i 

"5. A living being can be produced only from a 
or germ. Whence the first vegetable seed { 

"6. An animal cannot be produced from a plant 
Whence tbe first animal 1 

" 7. Sensation cannot be produced in insentient matter* 

" 8. Tbe genesis of a new species of plant or animal 
has never come under the cognizance of man, either in 
pre-human or post-human ages, either in pre-scientific 
or scientific times. Darwin acknowledges this, and says 
that, should a new species suddenly arise, we have no 
means of knowing that it is such. 

" 9. Consciousness — that is, a knowledge of self and 
its operations — cannot be produced out of mere matter 
or sensation. 

" 10. We have no knowledge of man being generated 
out of the lower animals. 

"11. All human beings, even savages, are capable 
forming certain high ideas, such as those of God and 
duty. The brute creatures cannot be made to enter- 
tain these by any training. 



THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 191 

"With such tremendous gaps in the process, the the- 

f which would derive all things out of matter by de- 
velopment is seen to be a very precarious one." 

The truth, according to the best judgment to be 
formed in the present state of knowledge, would seem 
to be about this: The nebular hypothesis is correct in 
all the main facts on which it is based ; but that neither 
the present forces of matter, nor any other forces con- 
able to the mind of man, with which it can possibly 
be endowed, can account for all the facts already ob- 
ed. There is a demand for a personal volition, for 
an exercise of intelligence, for the following of a divine 
plan that embraces a final perfection through various 
and changeful processes. The five great classes of facts 
that sustain the nebular hypothesis seem set before us 
t«. -how the regular order of working. The several 

its that will not, so far as at present know T n, accord 
with that plan, seem to be set before us to declare the 
presence of a divine will and power working his good 
ire according to the exigencies of time and place. 



X. 

THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 

"The heavens number out the glory of the strong God.'' — David. 

9 



Richter says that u aH nngcl once took a man and stripped him of his 
flesh, and lifted him op into space to show him t lie glory of the unive 
When the flesh was taken away the man ceased t<» he cowardly, and was 
ready to fly with the angel past galaxy after galaxy, and infinity after in- 
finity, ami so man and angel passed on, viewing the universe, until the 
sun was out of sight — until our solar system appeared as a speck of light 
against the black empyrean, and there was only darkness. And they 
looked onward, and in the infinities of light before, a speck of light ap- 
peared, and suddenly they were in the midst of rushing worlds, lint they 
passed beyond that system, and beyond system after system, and infinity 
after infinity, until the human heart sank, and the man cried out: 'End 
is there none of the universe of God? 1 The angel strengthened the man 
by words of counsel and courage, and they tlew on again until worlds 
behind them were out of sight, and specks of light in advance were trans- 
formed, as they approached them, into rushing systems; they moved over 
architraves of eternities, over pillars of immensities, over architecture of 
galaxies, unspeakable in dimensions and duration, and the human heart 
sank again and called out : ' laid is there none of the universe of God?' 
And all the stars echoed the question with amazement: 'End is there 
none of the universe of God? 1 And this echo found no answer. They 
moved on again past immensities of immensities, and eternities of eterni- 
ties, until in the dizziness of uncounted galaxies the human heart sank for 
the last time, and called out : ' End is there none of the universe of God?' 
And again all the stars repeated the question, and the angel answered: 
'End is there none of the universe of God. Lo, also, there is no be- 
ginning.'" 



THE OPEX PAGE UE THE HEAVENS. 1 ( J5 



X. 

THE UP EX PAGE OF TILE HEAVENS. 

Thk Greeks set their mythological deities in the skies, 
and read the revolving pictures as a starry poem. Not 
that they were the first to set the blazonry of the stars 
monuments of their thought; we read certain allu- 
qs to stars and asterisms as far hack as the time of 
b. And the Pleiades, Arcturus, and Orion are some 
of the name- used by Him who "calleth all the stars by 
their names, in the greatness of his power." Homer and 
Hesiod, 750 b.c, allude to a few stars and groups. The 
Arabians very early speak of the Great Bear; but the 
« i k> completely nationalized the heavens. They col- 
onized the earth widely, but the heavens completely; 
and nightly over them marched the grand procession of 
their apotheosized divinities. There Hercules perpetu- 
ally wrought his mighty labors for the good of man; 
there flashed and faded the changeful Btar Algol, as an 
in the head of the snaky-haired Medusa : over them 
P _ 3us, the winged horse of the poet, careering 
among the stare; there the ship Argo, which had ex- 
plored all strange seas of earth, nightly Bailed in the in- 
finite realms of heaven : there Perseus perpetually killed 
■monster by celestial aid, and perpetually won the 
I Andromeda for his bride. Very evident was 
gnition of divine help : equally evident - 



19G THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 

their assertion of human ability and dominion. Thev 
gathered the illimitable stars, and put uncountable suns 
into the shape of the Great Bear — the most colossal 
form of animal ferocity and strength — across whi 
broad forehead imagination grows weary in flying; bnt 
they did not fail to put behind him a representative of 
themselves, who forever drives him around a sky that 
never sets — a perpetual type that man's ambition and 
expectation correspond to that which has always been 
revealed as the divine. 

The heavens Bignify much higher power and wisdom 
to us; we retain -the old pictures and groupings for the 
convenience of finding individual stars. It is enough 
for the astronomer that we speak of a star as situated 
right ascension 13' 45", declination 88 c 40'. But for 
most people, If not all, it is better to call it Polaris. 
we might speak of a lake in latitude ii' !<>'. longitude 
79° 22', but it would he clearer to most persons to say 
Chatauqua. For exact location of a star, right ascension 
and declination must he given; but for general indica- 
tion its name or place in a constellation is sufficiently 
exact. The heaven is rather indeterminably laid out 
in irregular tracts, and the mythological names are pre- 
served. The brightest stars are then indicated in order 
by the letters of the Greek alphabet — Alpha (a), Beta 
Q3), Gamma (y), etc. After these are exhausted, the 
Roman alphabet is used in the same manner, and then 
numbers are resorted to; so that the famous star <»1 
Cygni is the 111th star in brightness in that one con- 
stellation. An acquaintance with the names, peculiari- 
ties, and movements of the stars visible at different sea- 
sons of the year is an unceasing source of pleasure. It 



THE OPEN PAGE OF THE HEAVENS L97 

not vision alone that i< gratified, for one fine enough 
may hear the inorniug stars sing together, and understand 

the speech that day uttereth unto day, and the knowl- 

^e that night showeth unto night. One never can be 
alone if he is familiarly acquainted with the stars. lie 
rises early in the summer morning, that he may see his 
winter friends; in winter, that he may gladden himself 
with a sight of the summer stars. He hails their suc- 

ssive rising as he does the coming of his personal 
friends from beyond the sea. On the wide ocean he is 
commercing with the skies, his rapt soul >itting in his 
Under the clear skies of the East he hears God's 
voice speaking to him. as to Abraham, and saving, 
" Look now toward the heavens, and tell the number of 
the stars, if thou be able to number them." 

A general acquaintance with the stars will be first at- 
tempted; a more particular knowledge afterward. Fig. 
page 201 i is a map of the ci renin polar region, which 

in full view every clear night. It revolves daily 
round Polaris, its central point. Toward this star, the 
two end stars of the Great Dipper ever point, and are 
in consequence called "the Pointers." The map may 

held toward the northern sky in BUch a position afl 
the .-tar- may happen to 1-c. The Great Bear, Or Dipper, 
will be seen at nine o'clock in the evening above the 
pole in April and May; west of the pole, the Pointers 
downward, in July and Angnst; close to the north ho- 
i i r and November; and east of the pole the 

inters highest, in January and February. The names 

constantly visible -tar- should be familiar. In 

order, from the end of the tail of the Greal Bear, we 

have Benctnasch >/. Mizar ^. Little Alcor close to it, Ali- 



198 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 

oth, t Megrez, 8 at the junction, has been growing dim- 
mer for a century, Phad, y Dnbhe and Merak. It is 
best to get some facility at estimating distances in 
grees. Dubhe and Merak," the Pointers," are five de- 
grees apart. Eighteen degrees forward of Dnbhe 
the Bear's nose ; and three pairs of Btars, fifteen degr 
apart, show the position of the Bear's three feet. Fol- 
low "the Pointers " twenty-nine degrees from Dnbhe, 
and we come to the pole-Star. This star is double, made 
of two suns, both appearing as one to the naked eve. 
It is a test of an excellent three-inch telescope to resolve 
it into two. Three stars beside it make the eurved-up 

handle of the Little Dipper of Ursa Minor. Between 
the two Bears, thirteen degrees froui Kiegrez, and eleven 

degrees from Mizar, art' two Stars in the tail of the 
Dragon, which curves about to appropriate all the .-tar- 
not otherwise assigned. Follow a curve of fifteen Btars, 
doubling back to a quadrangle from five to three de- 
grees on a side, and thirty-five degrees from the pole, for 
his head. His tongue runs out to a star four degri 
in front. We shall find, hereafter, that the foot of Her- 
cules stands on this head. This is the Dragon slain by 
Cadmus, and whose teeth produced such a crop of san- 
guinary men. 

The star Thuban was once the pole-star. In the 
year b.c. 2300 it was ten times nearer the pole than 
Polaris is now. In the year a.d. 21<)0 the pole will 
be within 30' of Polaris; in a.t>. 7500, it will be at 
a of Cepheus; in a.d. 13,500, within 7° of Vega; in 
a. d. 15,700, at the star in the tongue of Draco; in 
a.d. 23,000, at Thuban; in a.d. 28,000, back to Polaris. 
This indicates no change in the position of the dome 



THE OPEN PAGE OF THE HE A VEX > 199 

of stars, but a change in the direction of the axis of 
the earth pointing to these various places as the cy- 
cles pa>s. As the earth goes round its orbit, the axis, 
maintaining nearly the same direction, really points to 
everv part of a circle near the north star as large as the 
earth's orbit, that is, 185,000,000 miles in diameter. But, 
a> already shown, that circle is too small to be discerni- 
ble at our distance. The wide circle of the pole through 
the ages is really made up of the interlaced curves of 
the annual curves continued through 25,870 years. 
The stem of the spinning top wavers, describes a circle, 
and finally falls ; the axis of the spinning earth wavers, 
describes a circle of nearly 28,000 years, and never 
falls. 

The star y Draconis, also called Etanin, is famous in 
modern astronomy, because observations on this star 
led to the discovery of the aberration of light. If we 
held a glass tube perpendicularly out of the window of 
a car at rest, when the rain was falling straight down, 
we could see the drops pass directly through. Put 
the car in motion, and the drops would seem to start 
toward us. and the top of the tube must bo bent forward, 
or the drops entering would strike on the backside of 
the tube earned toward them. So our telescopes are 
bent forward on the moving earth, to enable the entered 
light to reach the eye-piece. Hence tin* star docs not 
appear jnst where it is. A- the earth move- faster in 
some part- of its orbit than others, tin's aberration is 
Bometimes greater than at others. It is fortunate that 
light moves with a uniform velocity, or this difficult 
problem would be .-till further complicated. The dis- 
placement of a star from tin"- course is about 20 . t3. 



200 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 

On the side of Polaris, opposite to Ursa Major, is 
King Cepheus, made of a few dim stars in the form of 
the letter K. Near by is his brilliant wife Cassiope 
sitting on her throne of state. They were the grace- 
lees parents who chained their daughter to a rock for 
the sea-monster to devour; but Perseus, swift with the 
winded sandals of Mercury, terrible with his avenging 
sword, and invincible with the severed brad of Me- 
dusa, whose horrid aspect of snaky hair and scaly body 
turned to stone every beholder, rescues the maiden from 
chains, and leads her away by the bands of love. Noth- 
ing could be more poetical than the life of Perseus. 
When he went to destroy the dreadful Gorgon, Medusa, 
Pluto lent him his helmet, which would make him in- 
visible at will; Minerva loaned her buckler, impenetra- 
ble, and polished like a mirror; Mercury gave him 
a dagger of diamonds, and his winged sandals, which 
would carry him through the air. Coming to the 
loathsome thing, he would not look upon her, lest lie, 
too, be turned to stone; but, guided by the reflection 
in the buckler, smote off her head, carried it high over 
Libya, the dropping blood turning to serpents, which 
have infested those deserts ever since. 

The human mind has always been ready to deify 
and throne in the skies the heroes that labor for others. 
Both Perseus and Hercules are divine by one parent, 
and human by the other. They go up and down the 
earth, giving deliverance to captives, and breaking ev- 
ery yoke. They also seek to purge away all evil ; they 
t slay dragons, gorgons, devouring monsters, cleanse the 
foul places of earth, and one of them so wrestles with 
death as to win a victim from his grasp. Finally, by 



CIRCUMPOLAR CONSTELLA TlOm 



20 J 




lircampolar Constellations. Always risible. In this position. — Janu- 
ary 20th, at 10 o'clock; February 4th, at 9 o'clock; and February 19th, at 8 
o'clock. 

an ascension in light, they go up to be in light forever. 
They are not ideally perfect. They right wrong by 

jring wrong-doers, rather than by being crucified 
themselves; they are just murderers; but that only 
plucks the fruit from the tree of evil. They never 

empted to infuse a holy life. They punished rather 

than regenerated. It must be confessed, also, thai they 

were not Binless. But they were the best saviors the 

il<l imagine, and arc examples of that perpetual 

>rt of the human mind to incarnate a Divine Helper 
wh<> .-hall labor and die for the good of men. 



202 



THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 



A -V U K > v V 



I S H E s 



C E r 



Fig. 68. — Algol in on the Meridian, 51 fl South of Pole.— At 10 o'clock, December 

7th ; 9 o'clock, December 29d ; B o'clock, January 5th. 

Equatorial < 'onst< Uations. 

If we turn our backs on Polaris on the loth of No- 
vember, at 10 o'clock in the evening, and look directly 
overhead, we shall see the beautiful constellation of 
Andromeda. Together with the square of Pegasus, it 

makes another enormous dipper. The star a Alpheratz 
is in her face, the three at the left cross her breast. 
/3 and the two above mark the girdle of her loins, and 
y is in the foot. Perseus is near enough for help; 
and Cetus, the sea-monster, is far enough away to do 
Yio harm. Below, and east of Andromeda, is the Rain 
of the golden fleece, recognizable by the three stars in 
an acute triangle. The brightest is called Arietis, or 
Hamel. East of this are the Pleiades, and the Y-shaped 
Hyades in Taurus, or the Bull. The Pleiades rise about 
9 o'clock on the evening of the 10th of September, and 
at 3 o'clock a.m. on June 10th. 



EQUATORIAL ( 0N8TELLATI0NS. 



203 



Cc:tor • - 

4W& • • 


* 


\j R * 

: "3 


ftetadc? 

G A ;•• 


RAM 


T W j 


*H • 


* £ ^Wck : ^/ j* * •■•" 


-. k \ V 


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* ^ 




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1 s - 


S 









r 


7 


A 


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ft*' 


or ; 


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U TTLI DOC 




A* 


6 .« 


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f * 


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"• •' % • \ 




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^ 


WIS ' 


^BD 




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N. ^ 


1 • * • 






• K 




I* 1 




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* % * \ • 


fc- . 


Ji^. * 


-' • 


">> .' 




-. ;-♦*■" 




HART 


"<z 


fe . 


?»*aV 


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■^ ^ 




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».— Capella (45- from the Pole) and Rijjel (100°) are on the Meridian at 
<>ek February 7th, 9 o'clock January 22d, and at 10 o'clock January 7th. 

Fig. 69 extends east and south of our last map. It 
is the most gorgeous section of our heavens. (See the 
Notes to the Frontispiece.) Note the triangle, 26° on 
a Bide, made by Betelgnese, Sirius, and Procyon. A 
line from Procyon to Pollux leads quite neatf to Polaris. 
Orion is the mighty hunter, ruder his feet is a hare, 
behind him are two dogs, and before him is the rushing 
bull. The curve of stars to the right of Bellatrix, y, 
•nt> his shield of the Nemean lion's hide. The 
three Btars of his heir make a measure 3 long; the 
upper one, Mi n taker, is less than 30' Bouth of the equi- 
na). The ecliptic passes between Aldebaran and the 
PI Sirius rises about 9 o'clock p.m. on the 1st of 

December, and about 4 o'clock a.m. on the 16th of Au- 

rt. Procyon rises about half an hour earlier. 



204 



THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 




Fig. 70 — Regulns comes oo the Meridian, T9 C sonth from the Pole, at 10 o'clock 

.March 23d, 9 o'clock April Bth, and at B o'clock April 28d 



Fig. To continues eastward. Note the sickle in tlie 
head and neck of the Lion. The star /3 is Denebola, in 
his tail. Arcturus appears by the word Bootes, at the 
edge of the map. These two stars make a triangle with 
Spica, about 35° on a side. The geometric head of 
Hydra is easily discernible east of Procyon. The star 
y in the Virgin is double, with a period of 14T> years. 
Z is just above the equinoctial. There is a fine nebula 
two-thirds of the way from § to ?/, and a little above the 
line connecting the two. Coma Berenices is a beauti- 
ful cluster of faint stars. Spica rises at 9 o'clock on 
the 10th of February, at 5 o'clock a.m. on the 6th of 
November. 



EQVA TORIAL VONSTELLA TIONS. 



205 







G J 
• 


^E 


AT ,-bz AR 

• 


. 






y 


• 


• 
• 


. # 




f> 


• 




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• 




"a 


c o ..• ^ 




• 


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• 




L-ITT.LE 


'lion 

• 


• 


9 . 

• r 


P N 




•* B XHENrc r -- . 
HAIR . ^ 


• 

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,- 


• • 


*1 t Jft*n 




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URC 

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H. — Arctnrns come? to the Meridian, 70° from the Pole, a' 10 o'clock May 
25th, 9 o'clock June 0th, and at S o'clock June 25th. 

Fig. 71 represents the sky to the eastward and north- 
ward of the last. A line drawn from Polaris and 
Benetnasch comes east of Arctnrns to the little triangle 
called his sons. Bootes drives the Great Bear round 
the pole. Arcturns and Denebola make a triangle with 
n. also called Cor Coroli, in the Hunting Dogs. This 
triangle, and the one having the same base, with Spica 
for its apex, is called the "Diamond of the Virgin." 
Bercnles appears head down — a in the face, /3,y,2 in his 

aiders, - and q in the loins, r in the knee, the foot 
being bent to the stars at the right. The Serpent's 
In-ad, making an x, IS JUSt at the right of the y of 
Bercnles, and the partial circle of the Northern Crown 
above. The head of Draco is Been at |3 on the left of 
the map. Arctnrns rises at 9 o'clock about the 20th of 

bruary, and at 5 a.m. on the 22d of October; Rega- 
ins 3h. 35m. earlier. 



206 



THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 




72. — Altair comes to the Meridian, 82 c from the Pole, at 10 o'clock i\m. Au- 
gust ISth, at 9 o'clock September 2d, and at 9 o'clock September lMh. 



Fig. 72 portrays the stars eastward and southward. 
Scorpio is one of the most brilliant and easily traced 
constellations. Antares, a, in the heart, is double. In 
Sagittarius is the Little Milk-dipper, and west of it the 
bended bow. Vega is at the top of the map. Near it 
observe £, a double, and e, a quadruple star. The point 
to which the solar system is tending is marked by the 
sign of the earth below it Ilerculis. The Serpent, west 
of Hercules, and coiled round nearly to Aquila, is very 
traceable. In the right-hand lower corner is the Cen- 
taur. Below, and always out of our sight, is the famous 
a Centauri. The diamond form of the Dolphin is some- 
times called " Job's Coffin/' The ecliptic passes close 



EQUA TORIAL < 'ONSTELLA TI0N8. 



207 



P E (• A S I S • . •..*"•' • ' He 

* . VU S V* A .V • ( 

■•'•.••.•••. 

• 


« 

i <\V o 


• . • • • 

FOX 




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CO 

[d 

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.. ARROW . . 


miT-^s^r MH , w^^^M * • hk ^mrt^m . ikt^ ^v^h 


DOLPHIN .... , mm 


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** '" ** 


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.. ATE R BEARER . . 

... £ A G U ^ .G * 




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ubh RVSIcWwi SQ 





K _. 73 Fomalhaut comes to the Meridian, only 17 s from the horizon, at 

8 o'clock November 4th. 

to /3 of Scorpio, which star is in the head. Antares, in 
Scorpio, rises at 9 o'clock r.M. on May 9th, and at 5 

lock a.m. on January 5th. 

In Fig. 73 we recognize the familiar stars of Pegasus, 

which tell us we have gone quite round the heavens. 

Note the beautiful cross in the Swan, ft in the bill is 

named Albireo, and is a beautiful double to almost any 

[tfi yellow and blue colors are very distinct. 

The place of the famous double Btar *'>1 Cygni is seen. 
The first magnitude star in the lower left-hand corner is 
Fomalhaut, in the Southern Fish, a Pegasi is in the 
diagonal corner from Alpharetz, in Andromeda. The 
■ below AJtair is (3 Aquilse, and is called Alschain; 

the is 7 Aquil®, named Tarazed. This L8 

not a brilliant section of the sky. Altair rises at 9 
ock on the 29th of May, and at 6 o'clock a.m. on 

the 1 lth of January. 



208 



THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 




Fig. 14. — Southern Circnmpolar Constellations invisible n<»rtli of ihe Equator. 



Fig. 74 gives the Btars that are never seen by per- 
sons north of the earth's equator. In the Ship is brill- 
iant Canopns, and the remarkable variable »/. Below it 

is the beautiful Southern Cross, near the pole of the 
southern heavens. Just below are the two first mag- 
nitude stars Bungala, a, and Achernar, /3, of the Centaur. 
Such a number of unusually brilliant stars give the 
southern sky an unequalled splendor. In the midst of 
them, as if for contrast, is the dark hole, called by the 
sailors the "Coal-sack," where even the telescope re- 
veals no sign of light. Here, also, are the two Magel- 
lanic clouds, both easily discernible by the naked eve ; 
the larger two hundred times the apparent size of the 
moon, lying between the pole and Canopns, and the 
other between Achernar and the pole. The smaller 
cloud is only one-fourth the size of the other. Both are 
mostly resolvable into groups of stars from the fifth to 
the fifteenth magnitude. 






CHARACTERISTICS OF THE STARS 209 

For easy out-door finding of the stars above t lie hori- 
zon at any time, see star-maps at end of the book. 

Characteristics of Hu Stars. 

Snch a superficial examination of stars as we have 
made scarcely touches the subject. It is as the study 
of the baptismal register, where the names were an- 
ciently recorded, without any knowledge of individuals. 
The heavens signify much more to us than to the 
Greeks. We revolve under a dome that investigation 
has infinitely enlarged from their estimate. Their lit- 
tle lights were turned by clumsy machinery, held to- 
gether by material connections. Our vast worlds are 
connected by a force so fine that it seems to pass out 
of the realm of the material into that of the spiritual. 
Animal ferocity or a human Hercules could image their 
idea of power. Ours finds no symbol, but rises to the 
Almighty. Their heavens were full of fighting Orions, 
wild bulls, chained Andromedas, and devouring mon- 
sters. Our heavens are significant of harmony and 
unity ; all worlds carried by one force, and all harmo- 
nized into perfect music. All their voices blend their 
various significations into a personal speaking, which 

5, "Hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, 
the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth 

. neither is weary?" There is no searching of his 
understanding. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold 

who hath created ail the>e things, that brought out their 

~r by number, that calleth them all by their names 
in the greatness of his power: for that he is strong in 
power not one faileth. 



210 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 

Nwrriber. 

We find about five thousand stars visible to the 
naked eye in the whole heavens, both north and south. 
Of these twenty are of the first magnitude, sixty-five 
of the second, two hundred of the third, four hundred 
of the fourth, eleven hundred of the fifth, and three 
thousand two hundred of the sixth. We think we can 
easily number the stars; but train a six-inch telescope 
on a little section of the Twins, where >i\ faint stars are 
visible, and over three thousand luminous points appear. 
The seventh magnitude has 13,000 stars; the eighth, 
40,000; the ninth, 142,000. There are 18,000,000 B< 
in the zone called the Milky Way. When our eyes are 
not sensitive enough to be affected by the light of far- 
off stars the tastimetre fee].- their heat, and tells us the 
word of their Maker is true — "they are innumerable. 

Double and MultipL Stars, 
If we look up during the summer months nearly over- 
head at the star t Lyrae, east of Vega I Fig. 72), we shall 

see with the naked eye that the star appears a little 

* Telescopic Work. — Look at tlie Ilyades and Pleiades in Taurus. 
Notice the different colors of stars in them both. Find the cluster 
Prsesepe in Fig. 70, just a trifle above a point midway between Procyon 
and Regains. It is equally distant from Procyon and a point a little 
below Pollux. Sweep along the Milky Way almost anywhere, and ob- 
serve the distribution of stars ; in some places perfect crowds, in oth- 
ers more sparsely scattered. Find with the naked eye the rich cluster 
in Perseus. Draw a line from Algol to a of Perseus (Fig. 67); turn 
at right angles to the right, at a distance of once and four-tenths the 
first line a brightness will be seen. The telescope reveals a gorgeous 
cluster. 



DOUBLE AND MULTIPLE stars. 211 

elongated. Turn your opera-glass upon it, and two 
stars appear. Turn a larger telescope on this double 
star, and eaeli of the components separate into two. It 

is a double double star. We know that if two star> are 
near in reality, and not simply apparently so by being 
in the same line of sight, they must revolve around a 
common centre of gravity, or rush to a common ruin. 
Eagerly we watch to see if they revolve. A few years 
suffice to show them in actual revolution. Nay, the 
movement of revolution has been decided before the 
companion star was discovered. Sirius lias long been 
known to have a proper motion, such as it would have 
if another sun were revolving about it. Even the di- 
rection of the unseen body could always be indicated. 
In February, 18^:2, Alvan Clark, artist, poet, and maker 
of telescopes (which requires even greater genius than 
to be both poet and artist), discovered the companion of 

ins just in its predicted place. As a matter of fact, 
<»ne of Mr. (lark's sons saw it first; but their fame is 
one. The time of revolution of this pair is fifty years. 
But one companion does not meet the conditions of the 
movements. Here must also be one or more planets 
too small or dark to be seen. The double star £ in the 

eat Bear (see Fig. 70) makes a revolution in fifty- 
eight years. 

Procyon moves in an orbit which requires the pres- 
: a companion star, but it has a- yet eluded our 

pch. Castor is a double star; but a third -tar or 

planet, undiscovered, is required to account for 

perturbations. Men who discovered Neptune by 

perturbations of CTranus are capable of judging the 

- of the perturbations of sons. We have spoken of 



212 



THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 



the whole orbit of the earth being invisible from the 
stars. The nearest star in our northern hemisphere, 61 
Cjgni, is a telescopic double star ; the constituent parts 
of it are forty-five times as far from each other as the 
earth is from the sun, yet it takes a large telescope to 
show any distance between the stars. * :: " 

When y Virginia was observed in 171 s by Bradley, 
the component parts were 7 asunder, lie incidental- 
ly remarked in his note -book that the line of their 
connection was parallel to the line of the two stars 
Spica, or « and § Virginia. By 1840 they were not 
more than 1" apart, and the line of their connection 
greatly changed. The appearance of the star is given 
in Fig. 77> (15), commencing at the left, for the ye 
1837, '38, '39, '40, '45, '50, '60, and '79; also a con- 
jectural orbit, placed obliquely, and the position of 



* Telescopic Work, — Only such work will be laid out here as can l>e 
done by small telescopes of from two to four inch object-glasses. The 
numbers in Fig. 76 correspond to those of the table. 



No. 


Name. 


Kg. 


Diet, of 

Tails. 


Magni- 
tudes. 


Remarks. 


1. 


b Lyra? 


72 


i' r>G" 




Quadruple. 


2. 


£ Lyra 


72 


44 


7> and (> 


Topaz and green. 


3. 


jSCygni.... 


;;; 


m 


:; •• <; 


Yellow and bine. 


4. 


61 Cygni... 


::\ 


20 


5 " (J 


Nearest star hut one. 


5. 


Mizar 


(17 


14 


3 " 4 


Both white. 


G. 


Polaris 


07 




2 " 9 


I Test object of eve 

( and glass. 












7. 


p Ononis... 


Frontispiece. 


7 


5 " 8 


Yellow and bine. 


8. 


fi Orion is... 


44 


9 


1 ' ; 8 


Kigel. 


9. 


S " ... 


(C 


10 


2 " 8 


Red and white. 


10. 


e " ... 


II 






Septuple. 


11. 


\ " ... 


44 


7> 




White and violet. 


12. 


<r " ... 


' ; A. B. 


11 


4 "10 


( H'tnple. 


13. 


Castor 


<;<> 


5J 


2 " 3 


White. 


14. 


Pollux 


tig 




Triple. 


( Irange, craw lilac. 


15. 


y Virginis.. 


70 


7) 


3 and 3 


Both yellow. 



DOUBLE AND MULTIPLE STARS. 



213 



the stars at the times mentioned, commencing at the 

top. The time of its complete revolution is one hun- 
dred and fifty years. 




Fig. 75.— Aspects and Revolution of Double Stars. 



The meaning of these double stars is that two or 
more suns revolve about their centre of gravity, as the 
moon and earth about their centre. If they have plan- 

. a- doubtless they have, the movement is no more 
iplicated than the planets we call satellites of Saturn 
revolving about their central body, and also about the 
sun. Kindle Saturn and Jupiter to a blaze, or let out 
their possible light, and our system would appear a 
triple star in the distance. Doubtless, in the far past, 
iv these giant planets were cooled, it so appeared. 

We find some stars double other- triple, quadruple, 
octuple, and multiple. It is an extension of the Bame 
principles that govern our system. Some of these suns 

SO far ."..-under that they can Bwing their Neptune- 

tween them, with less perturbation than CTranus and 

ptune have in ours. Light all our planet.-, and there 

would be a multiple star with more or less suns seen, 



214 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 

according to the power of the instrument. Perhaps the 
octuple star a in Orion differs in no respect from our sys- 
tem, except in the size and distance of its separate bod- 
ies, and less cooling, either from being younger, or from 
the larger bodies cooling mure slowly. Suns are of all 
ages. Infinite variety fills the sky. It is as preposter- 
ous to expect that every system or world should have 
analogous circumstances to ours at the present time. 
to insist that every member of a family should be <>!' the 
same ago, and in the same state of development. Th< 
are worlds that have not yet reached the conditions of 
liabitability by men, and worlds that have passed th< 
conditions long since. Let them go. There are enough 
left, and an infinite number in the course of preparation. 
Some are fine and lasting enough to be eternal mansions. 

( r olored Stars. 

In the cloudy morning we get only red light, but the 
sun is white. So AJdebaran and Betelguese may be 
girt by vapors, that only the strong red rays can ]» 
Again, an iron moderately heated gives out dull red 
light; becoming hotter, it emits white light. Sinus, 
Regulus, Vega, and Spiea may be white from greater 
intensity of vibration. Procyon, Capella, and Polaris 
are yellow from less intensity of vibration. Again, 
burn salt in a white flame, and it turns to yellow; mix 
alcohol and boracic acid, ignite them, and a beautiful 
green flame results; alcohol and nitrate of strontia 
give red flame ; alcohol and nitrate of barytes give 
yellow flame. So the composition of a sun, or the spe- 
cial development of any one substance thereof at any 
time, may determine the color of a star. 



CLUSTERS OF STARS 215 

Tlie special glory of color in the stars is Been in the 
marked contrasts presented in the double and multiple 
stars. The larger star is usually white, still in the in- 
tensity of heat and vibration ; the others, smaller, are 
Bomewhat cooled off, and hence present colors lower 
d«>wn the scale of vibration, as green, yellow, orange, 
and even red. 

That stars should change color is most natural. Many 
causes would produce this effect. The ancients said Si- 
rius was red. It is now white. The change that would 
must naturally follow mere a^e and cooling would be 
from white, through various colors, to red. We arc 
charmed with the variegated flowers of our gardens of 
earth, hut he who makes the fields blush with flowers 
under the warm kisses of the sun has planted his wider 
gardens of space with colored stars. " The rainbow 
flowers of the footstool, and the starry flowers of the 
throne," proclaim one being as the author of them all. 

Clusters of Stars. 

From double and multiple we naturally come to 

;ips and clusters. Allusion has been made to the 

Eyades, Pleiades, etc. Every one has noticed the 

Milky Way. It seems like two irregular streams of 

opacted stars. It is n<>t supposed that they are nec- 

trily nearer together than the stars in the sparse re- 

ibout the pole But the L8,000,000 suns belong- 

a to our system are arranged within a -pace repre- 

by a flattened disk. If one hundred light.-, tlnvr 

inches apart, are arranged on a boop ten feet in diame- 

. they would he in a circle Add a thousand Of two 

more tic- same distanc , filling up the centre, and 






216 



THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 




-Sprayed ( 'luster below q in 
Hercules. 



extending a few inches on each side of the inner plane 
of the hoop : an eye in the centre, looking out toward 
the edge, would see a milky way of lights; looking i 

toward the sides or poles, 
would see comparatively 
few. It would seem as if 
this oblate spheroidal ar- 
rangement was the result 
of a revolution of all the 
Bans composing the system. 
Jupiter and earth arc flat- 
tened at the poles for the 
same reason. 

In various part- of the 
heavens there are small 
globular well-defined du>- 
ters, and clusters very irregular in form, marked with 
sprays of stars. There is a cluster of this latter class in 
Hercules, just under the S 3 
in Fig. 72. "Probably no 
one ever saw it with a 
good telescope without a 
shout of wonder/' Here 
is a cluster of the former 
class represented in Fig. 77. 
"The noble globular clus- 
ter to Centauri is beyond all 
comparison the richest and 
largest object of the kind 
in the heavens. Its stars are literally innumerable ; and 
as their total light, when received by the naked eye, af- 
fects it hardly more than a star of the fifth to fourth 




Fig. 77.— Globular Cluster. 



NEBULA '217 

magnitude, the minuteness of each star may be imag- 
ined.' 5 

There are two possibilities of thought concerning 
these clusters. Either that they belong to our stellar 

stem, and hence the stars must be small and young, 
or they are another universe of millions of suns, so far 
away that the inconceivable distances between the Btars 
are shrunken to a handVbreadth, and their unbearable 

endor of innumerable suns can only make a gray 
haze at the distance at which we behold them. The 
latter is the older and grander thought ; the former the 
newer and better substantiated. 

Nebul 

The gorgeous clusters we have been considering ap- 
ir to the eye or the small telescope as little cloudlets 
of hazy light. One after another were resolved into 
and the natural conclusion was, that all would 
yield and reveal themselves to be clustered suns, when 
had telescopes of sufficient power. But the spec- 
troscope, seeing not merely form but substance also, 
vs that some of them are not stars in any Bense, but 
masses of glowing gas. Two of these nebulae are visi- 
ble to the naked eye: one in Andromeda -•■• Fig. 68), 
and ound the middle star of the sword of Orion, 

>wn in Fig. 7 s . A three-inch telescope resolves 
- into the famous trapezium, and a nine-inch in- 
two stars more. The Bhape of the nebula 
_ ble, and is hardly suggestive of the moulding 
influence of gravitation. It is probably composed of 
wing nitrogen and hydrogen gases. Nebula* are of 
all conceivable .-1. iivular, annular, oval, leiiticu- 

10 



218 



THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 



lar, conical, spiral, snake -like, looped, and nameless. 
Compare the sprays of the Crab nebulae above £ Tauri, 




Fig. TS.— The great Nebula about (lie multiple Star Ononis. (See Frontispiece.) 

seen in Fig. TO, and the ring nebula, Fig. SO. This last 
possibly consists of stars, and is situated, as shown in 
Fig. 81, midway between j3 and y Lyrae. 

When Herschel was sweeping the heavens with his 
telescope, and saw but few stars, he often said to his 
assistant, " Prepare to write; the nebulae are coming.' 1 
They are most abundant where the stars are least so. 
A zone about the heavens 30° wide, with the Milky 
Way in the centre, would include one-fourth of the ce- 
lestial sphere; but instead of one-fourth, we find nine- 



NEBULA 219 

tenths of the stare in this zone, and but one-tenth of the 
nebulae. 

These immense masses of unorganized matter are 
noticed to change their forms, vary their light greatly, 
but not quickly; they change through the ages. "God 
\\«»rks slowly/' lie takes a thousand years to lift his 
hand off. 









• 






• 

• 
• 






• • 








: 




.' 




I! m 1 1 




• € 


■ 


• 

• 


* 


1 
9ffiBNifl 

1 1 


Nebula abore*5Tavri 



1 ... Nebula, near ( i.iun. i&ee frouu*piece.) 

There arc many unsolved problems connected with 
these strange bodies. Whether they belong to our sys- 
tem, or are beyond it, is not Bettled; the weight ofevi 
dence leans to the firs! view. 



220 



THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 



Variable Stars. 

Our sun gives a variable amount of light, changing 
through a period of eleven years. Probably every star, 




Fig. 80.— The Riug Nebula. 



if examined by methods sufficiently delicate and exact, 
would be found to be variable. The variations of some 



VARIABLE STARS. 221 

Btare arc so marked as to challenge investigation. j3 

Lvrae I Fig. M | lias two maxima and minima of light. In 







N 


E 


+ 


E4 ^ I^aor 
^^ a Lyrer 

•*- 

IStibule 
s 



Fig. SI.— Constellation Lyra, showing place of the King Nebula. 

three days it rises from magnitude 4^ to 3|; in a week 
it falls to 4, and rises to 3i ; and in three days more 
drops to 4.1 : it makes all these changes in thirteen 
days; but this period is constantly increasing. The 
variations of one hundred and forty -three stars have 
been well ascertained. 

Mira, or the Wonderful, in the Whale (Fig. 68), is 
easily found when visible. Align from Capella to the 
Pleiades, and 8S much farther, and four stars will be 
n, situated thus: * * * The right-hand one is 
Mira. For half a month it shines as a Btar of the second 
magnitude. Then for three months it fades away, and 
is lost to Bight; going down even to the eleventh mag- 
nitude. Bnt after five month.- it- resurrection morning 
: and in three mouths more— eleven months in 
■our Wonderful is in its full glory in the heavens. 
But it- period and brilliancy are also variable. The star 
If egrez, < in the Great Hear, has been growing dim 



222 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 






for a century. In 1836 Betelguese was exceedingly 
variable, and continued so till 1840, when the chant 
became much less conspicuous. Algol (Fig. 68) I 
been already referred to. This slowly winking eye 
is of the second magnitude during 2d. 14h. Then it 
dozes off toward sleep for 4h. 2-im., when it is nearly 
invisible. It wakes up during the same time; so that 
its period from maximum brilliancy to the same state 
again is 2d. 20h. 48m. Its recognizable changes are 
within five or six hours. As I write, March 25th, 1879, 
Algol gives its minimum light at 9h, 36m. p.m. It 
passes fifteen minima in 43<L loin. There will therefore 
be another minimum May 7th, at 9h.49m. Its future 
periods are easy to estimate. Perhaps it has some dark 
body revolving about it at frightful speed, in a period 
of less than three days. The period of its variability Lb 
growing shorter at an increasing rate. If its variability 
is caused by a dark body revolving about it, the orbit of 
that body is contracting, and the huge satellite will soon, 
as celestial periods are reckoned, commence to graze the 
surface of the sun itself, rebound again and again, and 
at length plunge itself into the central fire. Such an 
event would evolve heat enough to make Algol flame 
up into a star of the first magnitude, and perhaps out- 
blaze Sirius or Capella in our winter sky. 

None of the causes for these changes we have been 
able to conjecture seem very satisfactory. The star> 
may have opaque planets revolving about them, shut- 
ting off their light ; they may rotate, and have unequal- 
ly illuminated sides; they may revolve in very elliptical 
orbits, so as to greatly alter their distance from us ; they 
may be so situated in regard to zones of meteorites as 



TEMPORARY, NEW, AND LOST STARS. 223 

to call down periodically vast showers; but none or all 
of these suppositions apply to all cases, if they do to any. 

Temporary, New, and Lost Stars. 
Besides regular movements to right and left, up and 

down, to and from us — changes in the intensity of illu- 
mination by changes of distance — besides variations oc- 
curring at regular and ascertainable intervals, there are 
stars called temporary, shining awhile and then disap- 
pearing; new, coming to a definite brightness, and so 
remaining; and lost, those whose first appearance was 
nut observed, but which have utterly disappeared. 

In November, 1572, a new star blazed out in Cassio- 
peia. Its place is shown in Fig. 67, x 7 being the stars 
* in the seat of the chair, and £ being the first one 
y X in the back. This star was visible at noonday, 
and was brighter than any other star in the heavens. 
In January, 1573, it was less bright than Jupiter; in 
April it was below the second magnitude, and the last 
of May it utterly disappeared. It was as variable in 
color as in brilliancy. During its first two months, the 
period of greatest brightness, it was dazzling white, then 
became yellow, and finally as red as Mars or Aldebaran, 
and so expired. 

A bright star was seen very near to the place of the 
Pilgrim, as the -tar of 1672 was called, in a.i>. 94.) and 
liNl. A star of the tenth magnitude is now ^an 

brightening slowly almost exactly in the same place. 
It is possible that this is a variable Btar of a period of 
about three hundred and ten years, and will blaze out 
again about 1 vv .">. 

But we have had. within a few years, line opportuni- 



224 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 

ties to study, with improved instruments, two new stare. 
On the evening of May 12th, 1866, a star of the second 
magnitude was observed in the Northern Crown, where 
no star above the fifth magnitude had been twenty- 
four hours before. In Argelander's chart a star of the 
tenth magnitude occupies the place. May 13th it had 
declined to the third magnitude, May 16th to the fourth, 
May 17th to the fifth, May L9th to the seventh. May 
31st to the ninth, and has since diminished to the tenth. 
The spectroscope showed it to be a star in the usual 
condition; but through the usual colored spectrum, 
crossed with bright lines, Bhone four bright lines, two 
of which indicated glowing hydrogen. Here was plen- 
ty of proof that an unusual amount of this gas had 
given this sun its sudden flame. As the hydrogen 
burned out the star grew dim. 

Two theories immediately presented themselves : 
First, that vast volumes had been liberated from within 
the orb by some sudden breaking up of the doors of 
its great deeps; or, second, this star had precipitated 
upon itself, by attraction, some other sun or planet, the 
force of whose impact had been changed into heat. 

Though we see the liberated hydrogen of our sun 
burst up with sudden flame, it can hardly be supposed 
that enough could be liberated at once to increase the 
light and heat one hundred-fold. 

In regard to the second theory, it is capable of proof 
that two suns half as large as ours, moving at a velocity 
of four hundred and seventy-six miles per second, would 
evolve heat enough to supply the radiation of our sun 
for fifty million years. How could it be possible for 
a sun like this newly blazing orb to cool off to such a 



TEMPORARY, NEW, AND Lost STARS. 225 

degree in a month i Besides, there would not be one 
chance in a thousand for two orba to come directly to- 
gether. They would revolve about each other till a 
kind of grazing contact of grinding worlds would slow- 

ly kindle the ultimate heat. 

It is far more likely that this star encountered an 
enormous stream of meteoric bodies, or perhaps absorb- 
ed a whole comet, that laid its million leagues of tail 
a> fuel on the central lire. Only let it be remembered 
that the fuel is far more force than substance. Allu- 
sion has already been made to the sudden brightening 
of our sun on the first day of September, 1851*. That 
was caused, no doubt, by the fall of large meteors, fol- 
lowing in the train of the comet of 1843, or some other 
comet. What the effect would have been, had the whole 
mass of the comet been absorbed, cannot be imagined. 

Another new star lately appeared in Cygnus, near 
the famous star 61 — the first star in the northern hem- 
isphere whose distance was determined. It was first 
seen November 24th, 1^7 ( '». as a third magnitude star 
of a yellow color. By December 2d it had sunk to the 
fourth magnitude, and changed to a greenish color. It 
had then three bright hydrogen lines, the strong double 

Hum line, and others, which made it strongly resem- 
ble the spectrum of the chromosphere of our bud. An 
entirely different result appeared in the fading of tip 
two Btare. In the case of the star in the Crown, the ex- 
traordinary light was the first to fade, leaving the U8Ua1 
rrum. In the ca8e of the Star in Cygnus, the 

part of the spectrum belonging to stellar light was the 
first to fade, leaving the bright lines; that is, the _ 

gave way to regular Starlight, and the starlight 

LO* 



226 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 

of the other having faded, the regular light of the glow- 
ing gas continued. By some strange oversight, no one 
studied the star again for six months. In September 
and November, 1877, the light of this star was found t<> 
be blue, and not to be starlight at all. It had no rain- 
bow spectrum, only one kind of rays, and hence only 
one color. Its sole spectroscopic line is believed to be 
that of glowing nitrogen gas. We have then, probably, 
in the star of 1876, a body shining by a feeble and un- 
discernible light, surrounded by a discernible immensi- 
ty of light of nitrogen gas. This is its usual condition; 
but if a flight of meteors Bhould raise the heat of the 
central body so as to outshine the nebulous envelope, 
we should have the conditions we discovered in No- 
vember, 1876, But a rapid cooling dissipates the ob- 
servable light of all colors, and leaves only the glowing 
gas of one color. 

Mow n<< nis of Stars. 

We call the stars //,/>•/, but motion and life arc nec- 
essary to all things. Besides tin 1 motion in the line of 
sight described already, there is motion in every other 
conceivable direction. AVe knew Sirius moved before 
Ave had found the cause. AVe know that our sun moves 
back and forth in his easy bed one-half his vast diam- 
eter, as the larger planets combine their influence on 
one side or the other. 

The sun has another movement. AVe find the stars 
in Hercules gradually spreading from each other. Iler- 
cules's brawny limbs grow brawnier every century- 
There can be but one cause : we are approaching that 
quarter of the heavens. (See 0, Fig. 72.) We are even 



MOVEMENTS OF STARS. 227 

able to compute the velocity of our approach ; it is four 
miles a second. The stars in the opposite quarter of 
the heavens in Argo are drawing nearer together. 

This movement would have no effect on the apparent 
place of the stars at either pole, if they were all equally 
distant; hut it must greatly extend or contract the ap- 
parent space between them, since they are situated at 
various distances. 

Independent of tin's, the stars themselves are all in 
motion, but so vast is the distance from which we ob- 
serve them that it has taken an accumulation of centu- 
ries before they could be made measurable. A train 
going forty miles an hour, seen from a distance of two 
miles, almost seems to stand still. Arcturus moves 
through space three times as fast as the earth, but it 
takes a century to appear to move the eighth part of 
the diameter of the moon. There is a star in the Hunt- 
ing Dogs, known as 1S30 Groombridge, which has a 
velocity beyond what all the attraction of the matter of 
the known universe could give it. By the year 9000 
it may be in Berenice's Hair. 

Some stars have a common movement, being evident- 
ly related together. A large proportion of the bright- 
er stars between Aldebaran and the Pleiades have a 
common motion eastward of about ten Beconde a cen- 
tury. All the angles marked by «. (3, y, \ Orionis will 
be altered in different directions; A is moving toward y. 
\ and £ will appear as a double star. In a.i>. 50,000 
Procyon will be nearer \ Orionis than Rigel now is, 
and Siriu> will be in line with a and \ Orionis. All 

the .-tar- of the Great Dipper, except Benetnasch and 
Dubhe, have a common motion Bomewhat in the diree- 



228 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 

tion of Thuban (Fig. 67), while the two named have a 
motion nearly opposite. In 36,000 years the end of 
the Dipper will have fallen out so that it will hold no 
water, and the handle will be broken square off at ]\Ii- 
zar. "The Southern Cross," says Humboldt, "will not 
always keep its characteristic form, for its four stars 
travel in different directions with unequal velocities. 
At the present time it is not known how many myriads 
of years must elapse before its entire dislocation." 

These movements are not in fortuitous or chaotic 
ways, but are doubtless in accordance with some perfect 
plan. We have climbed np from revolving earth and 
moon to revolving planets and sun, in order to under- 
stand how two Or ten suns can revolve about a common 
centre. Let us now leap to the grander idea that all 
the innumerable stars of a winter night not only can, 
but must revolve about some centre of gravity. Men 
have been looking for a central sun of suns, and have 
not found it. None is needed. Two suns can balance 
about a point; all suns can swing about a common 
centre. That one unmoving centre may be that city 
more gorgeous than Eastern imagination ever conceived, 
whose pavement is transparent gold, whose walls are 
precious stones, whose light is life, and where no dark 
planetary bodies ever cast shadows. There reigns the 
King and Lord of all, and ranged about are the far- 
off provinces of his material systems. They all move 
in his sight, and receive power from a mind that never 
wearies. 



XI. 

THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 

"The worlds were framed by the word of God."' — Ileb. xi., 3. 



11 Mysterious night ! when our first parent knew thee 
From report divine, Mid heard thv name, 

Did lie not tremble for this lovely frame, 
This glorious canopy of light and blue? 

Fet, Death a enrtain of translucent dew, 
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
Hesperus, with all trie llOSJ of hea\ en, came, 
And lo! creation widened in man's view. 
Who could have thought such darkness lav concealed 
Within thv beams, () Sun! Oh who could find, 
AVhilst fruit and leaf and insect stood revealed, 
That to such countless worlds thou mad'st us blind! 
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife? 
If light conceal so much, wherefore not life?" 

Blan< «» White, 



THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 231 



XI. 

THE WORLDS AXD THE WORD. 

Men have found the various worlds to be far rich- 
er than they originally thought. They have opened 
door after door in their vast treasuries, have ascended 
throne after throne of power, and ruled realms of in- 
creasing extent. We have no doubt that nnfoldings 
in the future will amaze even those whose expectations 
have been quickened by the revealings of the past. 
What if it be found that the Word is equally inex- 
haustible ! 

After ages of thought and discovery we have come 
oat of the darkness and misconceptions of men. We 
believe in no serpent, turtle, or elephant supporting 
the world; no Atlas holding up the heavens; no crys- 
tal domes, " with cycles and epicycles scribbled o'er." 
What if it be found that one book, written by ignorant 
men, never fell into these mistakes of the wisest ! Nay, 
more, what if some of the greatest triumphs of modern 
oce are to be found plainly stated in a book older 
than the writings of Homer! If Buns, planets, and 
Hire-, with all their possibilities of life, changes of 

flora and fauna, could be all provided for. as some 
entists tell us, in the fiery Btar-dust of a cloud, why 

may not the Bame Author provide a perpetually widen- 
ing river of life in bis Wordl A> we believe He 18 

perpetually present in his worlds, we know He has 



232 THE WORLDS AXD THE WORD. 

promised to be perpetually present in his Word, making 
it alive with spirit and life. 

The wise men of the past could not avoid alluding 
to ideas the falsity of which subsequent discovery has 
revealed; but the 'writers of the Bible did avoid such 
erroneous allusion. Of course they referred to some 
things, as sunrise and sunset, according to appearance; 
but our most scientific books do the same to -da v. 
That the Bible could avoid teaching the opposite of 
scientific truth proclaims that a higher than human 
wisdom was in its teaching. 

That negative argument is strong, but the affirmative 
argument is much stronger. The Bible declares scien- 
tific truth far in advance of its discovery, far in ad- 
vance of man's ability to understand its plain declara- 
tions. Take a few conspicuous illustration-: 

The Bible asserted from the first that the present 
order of things had a beginning. After ages of investi- 
gation, after researches in the realms of physics, argu- 
ments in metaphysics, and conclusions by the necessities 
of resistless logic, science has reached the same result. 

The Bible asserted from the first that creation of 
matter preceded arrangement. It was chaos — void — 
without form — darkness; arrangement was a subsequent 
work. The world was not created in the form it was 
to have; it was to be moulded, shaped, stratified, coal- 
ed, mountained, valleyed, subsequently. All of which 
science utters ages afterward. 

The Bible did not hesitate to affirm that light existed 
before the sun, though men did not believe it, and 
used it as a weapon against inspiration. Xow we praise 
men for having demonstrated the oldest record. 



THE WORLDS AM) THE WORD. 233 

It is a recently discovered truth of science that the 

strata of the earth were formed by the action i)( water, 
and the mountains were once under the ocean. It is 
an idea long familiar to Bible readers: "Thou coverest 
the earth with the deep as with a garment. The waters 
stood above the mountains. At thy. rebuke they fled; 
at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. The 
mountains ascend ; the valleys descend into the place 
thou hast founded for them/' Here is a whole volume 
of geology in a paragraph. The thunder of continental 
convulsions is God's voice; the mountains rise by God's 
power: the waters haste away unto the place God pre- 
pared f<>r them. Our slowness of geological discovery 
is perfectly accounted for by Peter. " For of this they 
are willingly ignorant, that by the word of God there 
were heayens of old, and land framed out of water, 
and by means of water, whereby the world that then 
Mas. being overflowed by water, perished.'' AVe recog- 
nize these geological subsidences, but we read them 
from the testimony of the rocks more willingly than 
from the testimony of the Word. 

Science exults in having discovered what it is pleased 
to call an order of development on earth — tender grass, 
herb, tree; moving creatures that have life in the wa- 
ters; bird, reptile, bea&t, cattle, man. The Bible gives 
the same order ages before, and calls it God's Recessive 
ttions. 

During ages OD ages man's wisdom held the earth to 
be flat. Meanwhile, God was Baying, century after cen- 
tury, of himself, "He Bitteth upon the sphere of the 
earth " i< tesenins). 

Men racked their feeble wit.- for expedient.- t<> up- 



231 THE WORLDS AXD THE WORD. 

hold the earth, and the best they could devise were ser- 
pents, elephants, and turtles; beyond that no one had 
ever gone to see what supported them. Meanwhile, 
God was perpetually telling men that he had hung the 
earth upon nothing. 

Men were ever trying to number the .-tars. Ilippar- 
chus counted one thousand and twenty-two; Ptolemy 
one thousand and twenty-six; and it is easy to number 
those visible to the naked eye. But the Bible said, 
when there were no telescopes t<> make it known, that 
they were as the sands of the sea, " innumerable." Sci- 
ence has appliances of enumeration unknown to other 
ages, but the space-penetrating telescopes and tastime- 
ters reveal more worlds— eighteen millions in a single 
system, and systems beyond count — till men acknowl- 
edge that the stars are innumerable to man. It 
God 9 8 prerogative w t0 number all the Btare; he also 
calleth them all by their names." 

TorricellTs discovery that the air had weight was re- 
ceived with incredulity. For ages the air had propelled 
ships, thrust itself against the bodies of men, and over- 
turned their works. But no man ever dreamed that 
weight was necessary to give momentum. During all 
the centuries it had stood in the Bible, waiting for 
man's comprehension; "He gave to the air its weight" 
(Job xxviii. 25), 

The pet science of to-day is meteorology. The fluc- 
tuations and variations of the weather have hitherto 
baffled all attempts at unravelling them. It has seemed 
that there was no law in their tickle changes. But at 
length perseverance and skill have triumphed, and a 
single man in one place predicts the weather and wind.- 



THE WORLDS AM) THE WORD. 235 

for a continent But the Bible lias always insisted that 

the whole department was under law; nay, it laid down 
that law so clearly, that if men had been willing to learn 
from it they might have reached this wisdom ages ago. 
The whole moral law is not more clearly crystallized in 
M Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and thv neighbor as thyself," than all the fundamentals 
of the science of meteorology are crystallized in these 
words : " The wind goeth toward the south (equator), 
and turneth about (np) unto the north; it whirleth 
abont continually, and the wind returneth again accord- 
ing to his circuits (established routes). All the rivers 
run into the sea ; yet the sea is not full: unto the place 
fr.nn whence the rivers come, thither they return again' 3 
:les. i. 6,7). 

Those scientific queries which God propounded to 
Job were unanswerable then; most of them arc so 
now. " Whereon are the sockets of the earth made to 
sink C Job never knew the earth turned in sockets ; 
much less could he tell where they were fixed. God 
answered this question elsewhere. "He stretcheth the 
north (one socket) over the empty place, and hangeth 
the earth upon nothing.'- Speaking of the day-spring, 
God .-ays the earth is turned to it. as clay to the seal. 
The earth's axial revolution is clearly recognized. Co- 
pernicus declared it early; Cod earlier. 

No man yet understands the balancing of the clouds, 

nor the suspension of the frozen masses of hail, any 
more than Job did. 

Sad God asked if he liad perceived the length of the 

rth, many a man to-day could have answered yes. 

Bnt the eternal ice keeps ds from perceiving the breadth 



236 THE WORLDS AXD THE WORD. 

of the earth, and shows the discriminating wisdom of 
the question. 

The statement that the sun\s ^oino; is from the end 
of the heaven, and his circuit to the ends of it, has given 
edge to many a sneer at its supposed assertion that the 
sun went round the earth. It teaches a higher truth — 
that the sun itself obeys the law it enforces on the plan- 
ets, and flies in an orbit of its own. from one end of 
heaven in Argo to the other in Hercules. 

So eminent an astronomer and BO true a Christian as 
Genera] Mitchell, who understood the voices in which 
the heavens declare the glory of God,who read with 

delight the Word of God embodied in worlds, and who 
fed upon the written Word of God as bis daily bread, 
declared," We find an aptness and propriety in all these 

astronomical illustrations, which are not weakened, but 
amazingly strengthened, when viewed in the clear light 

of our present knowledge.' 3 Herschel Bays, "All hu- 
man discoveries seem to be made only for the purp 
of confirming more strongly the truths that come from 
on high, and are contained in the sacred writings." 

The common authorship of the world.- and the Word 
becomes apparent; their common unexplorable wealth 
is a necessary conclusion. 

Since the opening revelations of the past show an 
unsearchable wisdom in the Word, has that Word any 
prophecy concerning mysteries not yet understood, and 
events yet in the future I There are certain problems 
as yet insolvable. We have grasped many clews, and 
followed them far into labyrinths of darkness, but not 
yet through into light. 

We ask in vain, " What is matter?" No man can 



THE WORLDS AND THE WORD, 237 

answer. We trace it up through the worlds, till its in- 
creasing fineness, its growing power, ami possible iden- 
tity of substance, seem as if the next step would reveal 
its spirit origin. What we but hesitatingly stammer, 
the Word boldly asserts. 

We ask, " What is force P 1 No man can answer. 
We recognize its various grades, each subordinate to 
the higher — cohesion dissolvable by heat ; the affinity 
of oxygen and hydrogen in water overcome by the pierc- 
ing intensity of electric fire; rivers seeking the sea by 
gravitation carried back by the sun; rock turned to 
soil, soil to flowers ; and all the forces in nature meas- 
urably subservient to mind. Hence we partly under- 
stand what the Word has always taught us, that all 
lower forces must be subject to that which is highest. 
How easily can seas be divided, iron made to swim, 
water to burn, and a dead body to live again, if the 
highest force exert itself over forces made to be mas- 
tered. When we have followed force to its highest 
place, we always find ourselves considering the forces 
of mind and spirit, and say, in the words of the Scrip- 
tures, "God is spirit." 

We ask in vain what is the end of the present Condi- 
tion of things. We have read the history of our globe 
with great difficult j — its prophecy is still more difficult 
We have asked whether the stars form a system, and 
it" ><», whether that system is permanent. Wo arc not 
able to answer yet. We have .-aid that the sun would 

in time become as icy Cold and dead as the moon, and 

then the earth would wander darkling in the voids of 

But the end of the earth, a> prophesied in the 

W«»rd, is different: "The heavens will pass away with 



238 



THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 



a rushing noise, and the elements will be dissolved with 
burning heat, and the earth and the works therein will 
be burned up." The latest conclusions of science point 
the same way. The great zones of uncondensed matter 
about the sun seem to constitute a resisting medium as 
far as they reach. Encke's comet, whose orbit comes 
near the sun, is delayed. This gives gravitation an 
overwhelming power, and hence the orbit is lessened 
and a revolution accomplished more quickly. Fa\ 
comet, which wheels beyond the track of Mars, is not 
retarded. If the earth moves through a resisting sub- 
stance, its ultimate fall into the sun is certain. Wheth- 
er in that far future the sun shall have cooled <>il\ <>r 
will be still as hot as to-day, Peter's description would 
admirably portray the result of the impact. Peter's 
description, however, seems rather to indicate an inter- 
ference of Divine power at an appropriate time before 
a running down of the system at present in existence, 
and a re-endowment of matter with new capabilities. 

After thousands of years, science discovered the true 
way to knowledge. It is the Baconian way of experi- 
ment, of trial, of examining the actual, instead of imag- 
ining the ideal. It is the acceptance of the Scriptural 
plan. " If a man wills to do God's will, lie shall know." 
Oil taste and see ! In science men try hypotheses, think 
the best they can, plan broadly as possible, and then see 
if facts sustain the theory. They have adopted the 
Scriptural idea of accepting a plan, and then working 
in faith, in order to acquire knowledge. Fortunately, 
in the work of salvation the plan is always perfect. 
But, in order to make the trial under the most favora- 
ble circumstances, there must be faith. The faith of 



THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 239 

science is amazing; its assertions of the supersensual 
are astounding. It affirms a thousand things that can- 
not be physically demonstrated : that the flight of a rifle- 
ball is parabolic ; that the earth has poles ; that gases are 
made of particles; that there are atoms; that an elec- 
tric light gives ten times as many rays as are visible; 
that there are sounds to which we are deaf, sights to 
which we are blind ; that a thousand objects and activi- 
ties arc about us, for the perception of which we need a 
hundred senses instead of live. These faiths have near- 
ly all led to sight ; they have been rewarded, and the 
world's wealth of knowledge is the result. The Word 
has ever asserted the supersensuous, solicited man's faith, 
and ever uplifted every true faith into sight. Lowell is 
partly right when he sings: 

11 Science was Faith once ; Faith were science now, 
Would she but lav her bow and arrows by, 
And arm her with the weapons of the time." 

Faith laid her bow and arrows by before men in pursuit 
of worldly knowledge discovered theirs. 

What becomes of the force of the sun that is being 
spent to-day { It is one of the firmest rocks of science 
that there can be no absolute destruction of force. It 
IS all conserved somehow. But howl The sun con- 
tracts, light results, and leaps swiftly into all encircling 
It can never be returned. Beat from stars in- 
visible by the largest telescope enter.- the tastimeter, and 
declares that that force has journeyed from its source 

through incalculable ycnv-. There is no encircling 

done- to reflect all this force back upon its Bources. I> 
it lost i Science, in defence of its own dogma, shonld 



240 



THE WORLDS AXI) THE WORD. 



assign light a work as it flies in the space which we have 
learned cannot be empty. There ought to be a realm 
where light's inconceivable energy is utilized in build- 
ing a grander universe, where there is no night. ( 1iri>t 
said, as he went out of the seen into the unseen, k% I 
to prepare a place for you;" and when John saw it in 
vision the sun had disappeared, the moon was gone, but 
the light still continued. 

Science finds matter to be capable of unknown refine- 
ment; water becomes steam full of amazing capabilities: 
we add more heat, superheat the steam, and it takes on 
new aptitudes and uncontrollable energy. Zinc burned 
in acid becomes electricity, which enters iron as a kind 
of soul, to till all that body with life. All matter is 
capable of transformation, if not transfiguration, till it 
shines by the light of an indwelling spirit. Scripture 
readers know that bodies and even garments can be 
transfigured, be made afj-pu-Thiv (Luke xxiv. 4), shin- 
ing with an inner light. They also look for new heav- 
ens and a new earth endowed with higher powers, fit 
for perfect beings. 

When God made matter, so far as our thought per- 
mits us to know, he simply made force stationary and 
unconscious. Thereafter he moves through it with his 
own will. He can at any time change these forces, 
making air solid, water and rock gaseous, a world a 
cloud, or a fire-mist a stone. He may at some time re- 
store all force to consciousness again, and make every 
part of the universe thrill with responsive joy. " Then 
shall the mountains and the hills break forth before 
you into singing, and all the trees of the field clap their 
hands." One of these changes is to come to the earth. 






THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 241 

Amidst great noise the heaven shall floe, the earth be 
burned up. and all their forces be changed to new 
forms. Perhaps it will not then be visible to mortal 
eves. Perhaps force will then be made conscious, and 
the flowers thereafter return our love as much as lower 
creatures do now. A river and tree of life may be 
consciously alive, as well as give life. Poets that are 
nearest to God are constantly hearing the sweet voices 
of responsive feeling in nature. 

•• For his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness and a smile, 
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides 
Into lib darker musings with a mild 
And gentle sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness ere he is aware. '' 

Prophets who utter God's voice of truth say, " The 

wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for holy 

men, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the 

It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice, even 

with joy and singing.' 3 

Distinguish clearly between certainty and surmise. 
The certainty is that the world will pass through catas- 
trophic cha a perfect world. The grave of uni- 
furmitarianism is already covered witli grass, lie that 
- promises to complete. The invisible, impon- 
derable, inaudible ether is beyond our apprehension; 
it transmits impressions 186,000 mil- jond; it is 
millions of times more capable and energetic than air. 
What may be the' bounds of its possibility none can im- 

Eor law is not abrogated nor designs disregarded 

d into higher realm-. Law works out ne 

beautiful designs with m< rtainty. Why 

11 



242 THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 

should there not be a finer universe than this, and dis- 
connected from this world altogether — a fit home for 
immortal souls ? It is a necessity. 

God filleth all in all, is everywhere omnipotent and 
wise. Why should there be great vacuities, barren of 
power and its creative outgoings? God has fixed the 
stars as proofs of his agency at some points in space. 
But is it in points only? Science is proud of its dis- 
covery that what men once thought to be empty space 
is more intensely active than the coarser forms of mat- 
ter can be. But in the long times which are past Job 
glanced at earth, Beas, clouds, pillars of heaven, stars, 
day, night, all visible things, and then added: k 'Lo! 
these are only the ontlying borders of his work.-. What 
a whisper of a word we hear of Him ! The thunder 
of his power who can comprehend P 5 

Science discovers that man is adapted for mastery in 
this world. lie is of the highest order of visible creat- 
ures. Neither is it possible to imagine an order of be- 
ings generically higher to be connected with the con- 
ditions of the material world. This whole secret was 
known to the author of the oldest writing. % * And God 
blessed them, and God said unto them : Be fruitful, and 
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and 
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the 
fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth 
upon the earth." The idea is never lost sight of in the 
sacred writings. And while every man knows he must 
fail in one great contest, and yield himself to death, 
the later portions of the divine Word offer him victory 
even here. The typical man is commissioned to destroy 
even death, and make man a sharer in the victory. 



THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 243 

Science babbles at this great truth of man's position 
like a little child; Scripture treats it with a breadth of 
perfect wisdom we are only beginning to grasp. 

Science tolls us that each type is prophetic of a 
higher one. The whale has bones prophetic of a 
human hand, lias man reached perfection? Is there 
no prophecy in hiinl Not in his body, perhaps ; but 
how his whole soul yearns for greater beauty. As 
ii as he has found food, the savage begins to carve 
his paddle, and make himself gorgeous with feathers. 
How man yearns for strength, subduing animal and 
cosmic forces to his will ! How he fights against dark- 
ness and death, and strives for perfection and holiness ! 
These prophecies compel us to believe there is a world 
where powers like those of electricity and luminiferous 
ether are ever at hand ; where its waters are rivers of 
life, and its trees full of perfect healing, and from which 
all unholiness is forever kept. What we infer, Scrip- 
ture affirms. 

S ience tolls us there has been a survival of the fittest. 
Doubtless this is so. So in the future there will be a 
survival of the fittest. What is it I Wisdom, gentle- 

38, meekness, brotherly kindness, and charity. Over 
those wh<> have these traits death hath no permanent 
power. The caterpillar has no fear as he weave- his 
own shroud : for there is life within fit to survive, and 
ere long it spreads its gorgeous wings, and dies in the 

air above where once it crawled. Man has had two 

Btates of being already. < tne confined, dark, peculiarly 
nourished, slightly conscious; then he was born into 
another — wide, differently nourished, and intensely con- 
scious. He knows he may be born again into a life 



244 THE WORLDS AXD THE WORD. 

wider yet, differently nourished, and even yet more in- 
tensely conscious. Science has no hint how a long 
ascending series of developments crowned by man may 
advance another step, and make man laayyiKoq — equal 
to angels. But the simplest teaching of Scripture points 
out a way so clear that a child need not miss the glori- 
ous consummation. 

When CTranUfl hastened in one part of its orbit, 
and then retarded, and swung too wide, men .-aid there 
must be another attracting world beyond : and, looking 
there, Neptune was found. So, when individual men 
are so strong that nations or armies cannot break down 
their wills; so brave, that lions have no terrors 
holy, that temptation cannot lure nor .-in defile them; 
so grand in thought, that men cannot follow; BO pure 
in walk, that God walks with them — let us infer an at- 
tracting world, high and pure and strong as heaven. 
The eleventh chapiter of Hebrews is a roll-call of heroes 
of whom this world was not worthy. They were tort- 
ured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain 
a better resurrection. The world to come influenced, 
as it were, the orbits of their souls, and when their bod- 
ies fell off, earth having no hold on them, they sped on 
to their celestial home. The tendency of such souls 
necessitates such a world. 

The worlds and the Word speak but one language. 
teach but one set of truths. How was it possible that 
the writers of the earlier Scriptures described physical 
phenomena with wonderful sublimity, and with such 
penetrative truth? They gazed upon the same heaven 
that those men saw who ages afterward led the world 
in knowledge. These latter were near-sighted, and ab- 






THE WORLDS A XD THE WORD. 245 

sorbed in the pictures on the first veil of matter; the 
former were far-sighted, and penetrated a hundred 
strata of thickest material, and saw the immaterial pow- 
er behind. The one class studied the present, and made 
the gravest mistakes ; the other pierced the uncounted 
aires of the past, and uttered the profoundest wisdom. 
There is but one explanation. He that planned and 
made the worlds inspired the Word. 

Science and religion are not two separate depart- 
ments, they are not even two phases of the same truth. 
Science has a broader realm in the unseen than in the 
seen, in the source of power than in the outcomes of 
power, in the sublime laws of spirit than in the laws of 
matter: and religion sheds its beautiful light over all 
stages of life, till, whether we eat or whether we drink, 
<>r whatsoever we do, we may do all for the glory of 
God. Science and religion make common confession 
that the great object of life is to learn and to grow. 
Both will come to ^ee the best possible means, for the 
attainment of this end is a personal relation to a teach- 
er who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 






XII. 

THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 

<; In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 
the Word was God. The sarrfe was in the beginning with God. All 
tilings became by him. and without him was not anything made that was 
made * * * and by him all things stand together." 



"0 thou eternal one : whose presence bright 
All space doth occupy — all motion guide — 
Thou from primeval nothingness didst call 
Firsl chaos, then existence. Lord, on thee 
Eternity had its foundation : all 
Sprung forth from thee — of light, joy, harmony, 
Sole origin : all life, all beauty thine. 
Thy word created all. and doth create: 
Thy splendor tills all space with rays divine; 
Thou art and wert, and shalt he glorious, great ; 
Life-giving, life-sustaining Potentate, 
Thy chains the unmeasured universe surround — 
Upheld by thee, by thee inspired with breath." 

Dl.KZIIAVIN. 



THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 249 



XII. 

THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 

The universe is God's name writ large. Thought 

goes up the shining suns as golden stairs, and reads the 
consecutive syllables — all might, and wisdom, and beau- 
ty: and if the heart be line enough and pure enough, it 
also reads everywhere the mystic name of love. Let 
us learn to read the hieroglyphics, and then turn to the 
blazonry of the infinite page. That is the key-note; the 
heavens and the earth declaring the glory of God, and 
men with souls attuned listening. 

To what voices shall we listen first ? Stand on the 
shore of a lake set like an azure c;em anion 2: the bosses 
of green hills. The patter of rain means an annual fall 
of four cubic feet of water on every square foot of it. 
It weighs two hundred and forty pounds to the cubic 
foot, one hundred million tons on the surface of a little 
sheet of water twenty miles long by three wide. \o\v, 
all that weight of falling rain had to be lifted, a work 
Compared to which taking up mountains and casting 
them into the Bea is pastime. All thai water had to be 
taken np before it could be cast down, and carried hun- 
dreds of miles before it could be there. You have heard 
V thunder: have stood beneath the falling im- 

mensity; seen it »ly poured from an infinite 

hand: felt that you would be ground to atoms if you 

fell into that resistless ll 1. Well, all that infinity of 

! 1 -■ 



250 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 

water had to be lifted by main force, bad to be taken 
up out of the far Pacific, brought over the Rocky 
Mountains ; and the Mississippi keeps bearing its wide 
miles of water to the Gulf, and Niagara keeps thunder- 
ing age after age, because there is power somewhere to 
carry the immeasurable floods all the time the other 
way in the upper air. 

But this is only the Alpha of power. Proft 
Clark, of Amherst, Massachusetts, found that such a 
soft and pulpy thing as a squash had so great a power 
of growth that it lifted three thousand pounds, and held 
it day and night for months. It toiled and grew un- 
der the growing weight, compacting its substance like 
oak to do the work. All over the earth this tremen- 
dous power and push of life goes on — in the little .^tar- 
eyed flowers that look up to God only on the Alpine 
heights, in every tuft of grass, in every acre of wheat, 
in every mile of prairie, and in every lofty tree that 
wrestles with the tempests of one hundred winters. 
But this is only the 15 in the alphabet of power. 

Else above the earth, and you find the worlds to 
like playthings, and hurled seventy times as fast 8 
rifle-ball, never an inch out of place or a second out of 
time. But this is only the C in the alphabet of power. 

Rise to the sun. It is a quenchless reservoir of high- 
class energy. Our tornadoes move sixty miles an hour, 
those of the sun twenty thousand miles an hour. A 
forest on fire sends its spires of flame one hundred feet 
in air, the sun sends its spires of flame two hundred 
thousand miles. All our fires exhaust the fuel and burn 
out. If the sun were pure coal, it would burn out in 
five thousand years; and yet this sea of unquenchable 



i 



77/ E ULTIMATE FORCE. 251 

flame seethes and burns, and rolls and vivifies a dozen 
worlds, and flashes life along the starry spaces for a mill- 
ion years without any apparent diminution. It sends 
out its power to every planet, in the vast circle in which 
it lies. It tills with light not merely a whole circle, but 
a dome: not merely a dome above, but one below, and 
on every side. At our distance of ninety-two and a half 
millions of miles, the great earth feels that power in 
gravitation, tides, rains, winds, and all possible life — 
every part is full of power. Fill the earth's orbit with 
a circle of such receptive worlds — seventy thousand in- 
stead of one — every one would be as fully supplied with 
power from this central source. More. Fill the whole 
dome, the entire extent of the surrounding sphere, bot- 
tom, sides, top, a sphere one hundred and eighty -five 
million miles in diameter, and every one of these un- 
countable worlds would be touched with the same pow r - 
er as one : each would thrill with life. This is only the 
D of the alphabet of power. And glancing up to the 
other Mins, one hundred, five hundred, twelve hundred 
times as large, double, triple, septuple, multiple suns, we 
shall find power enough to go through the whole alpha- 
bet in geometrical ratio: and then in the elu-t< red SUM, 

ixies, and nebulae, power enough .-till unrepresented 
by single letters to require all combinations of the al- 
phabet of power. What is the significance of this single 
element of power \ The answer of science to-day is u cor 

relation," the constant evolution of One force from an- 
other. Heat is a mode of motion, motion a result of heat, 
grood. But are we mere reasoners in a circle \ 
Then we would be lost men, treading our round of death 
in a limitless forest. What is the ultimate? Reason 



252 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 

out in a straight line. No definition of matter allows it 
to originate force; only mind can do that. Hence the 
ultimate force is always mind. Carry your correlation 
as far as you please — through planets, suns, nebulae, con- 
cretionary vortices, and revolving fire-mist — there must 
always be mind and will beyond. Some of that will- 
power that works without exhaustion must take its own 
force and render it static, apparent. It may do this in 
such correlated relation that that force shall go on year 
after year to a thousand changing forms; but that force 
must originate in mind. 

Go out in the falling rain, Btand under the thunder- 
ous Niagara, feel the Immeasurable rush of life, see the 
hanging worlds, and trace all this - the carried rain, the 
terrific thunder with God's how of peace upon it, and 
the unfailing planets hung upon nothing — trace all this 
to the orb of day blazing in perpetual strength, but stop 
not there. Who made the Bun? Contrivance tills all 
thought. Who made the sun ( Nature says there is a 
mind, and that mind is Almighty. Then you have read 
the first syllables, viz., being and power. 

What is the continuous relation of the universe to the 
mind from which it derived its power!' Some say that 
it is the relation of a wound-up watch to the winder. It 
was dowered with sufficient power to revolve its cease- 
less changes, and its maker is henceforth an absentee 
God. Is it? Let us have courage to see. For twen- 
ty years one devotes ten seconds every night to put- 
ting a little force into a watch. It is so arranged that 
it distributes that force over twenty -four hours. In 
that twenty years more power has been put into that 
watch than a horse could exert at once. But suppose 



THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 253 

one had tried to put all that force into the watch at once : 
it would have pulverized it to atoms. But supposing 

the universe had been dowered with power at first to 
run its enormous rounds for twenty millions v\' years. 
It is inconceivable; steel would be as friable as sand, 
and Btrengthless as smoke, in such strain. 

We have discovered some of the laws of the force we 
call gravitation. But what do we know of its essence? 
How it appears to act we know a little, what it is we 
are profoundly ignorant. Few men ever discuss this 
question. All theories are sublimely ridiculous, and fail 
to pass the most primary tests. How matter can act 
where it is not, and on that with which it has no con- 
nection, is inconceivable. 

Xewton said that any one who has in philosophical 
matters a competent faculty of thinking, could not ad- 
mit for a moment the possibility of a sun reaching 
through millions of miles, and exercising there an at- 
tractive power. A watch may run if wound up, but 
how the watch-spring in one pocket can run the watch 
in another is hard to see. A watch is a contrivance for 
distributing a force outside of itself, and if the universe 
runs at all on that principle, it distributes some force 
outside of itself. 

Le B _ theory of gravitation by the infinitive hail 
of atoms cannot stand a minute, hence we come back as 
a necessity of thought t«» Eerschel's statement. " It is 
but reasonable to regard gravity as a result of a con- 
ad a will existent Bomewhere." Where 1 I 
d an old boob .-peaking of these matters, and it e 
<t<h]. He 1. the earth upon nothing; he up- 

holdeth ntly all thing- by the word of his power. 



254 THE ULTIMATE FORCE, 

By him all things consist or hold together. It teach- 
es an imminent mind; an almighty, constantly exerted 
power. Proof of this starts up on every side. There 
is a recognized tendency in all high-class energy to de- 
teriorate to a lower class. There is steam in the boil- 
er, but it wastes without fuel. There is electricity in 
the jar, but every particle of air steals away a little, 
unless our conscious force is exerted to regather it. 
There is light in the sun, but infinite space waits to re- 
ceive it, and takes it swift as light can leap. We said 
that if the sun were pure coal, it would burn out in five 
thousand years, but it blazes undimmed by the million. 
How can it? There have been various theories: chem- 
ical combustion, it lias failed; meteoric impact, it 
insufficient; condensation, it is not proved; and if it 
were, it is an intermediate Btep back t<> the original 
cause of condensation. The far-seeing eyes see in the 
sun the present active power of Him who first said, 
"Let there be light," and who at any moment can ne 
a Saul in the way to DamaflCUS with a light above the 
brightness of the sun — another noon arisen on mid-day ; 
and of whom it shall be said in the eternal state of un- 
clouded brightness, where sun and moon are no more, 
"The glory of the Lord shall lighten it, and the Lamb 
is the light thereof." 

But suppose matter could be dowered, that worlds 
could have a gravitation, one of two things must fol- 
low : It must have conscious knowledge of the position, 
exact weight, and distance of every atom, mass, and 
world, in order to proportion the exact amount of grav- 
ity, or it must fill infinity with an omnipresent attract- 
ive power, pulling in myriads of places at nothing; in 



THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 255 

a few plaee> at worlds. Every world must exert an in- 
finitely extended power, but myriads of infinities can- 
nut be in the same space. The solution is, one infinite 
power and conscious will. 

To see the impossibility of every other solution, join in 
the long and microscopic hunt for the ultimate particle, 
the atom : and if found, or if not found, to a consider- 
ation of its remarkable powers. Bring telescopes and 
microscopes, use all strategy, for that atom is difficult 
to catch. Make the first search with the microscope: 
we can count 112,000 lines ruled on a glass plate in- 
side of an inch. But wo are here looking at mountain 
ridges and valleys, not atoms. Gold can be beaten to 
th e ttuWo of an inch. It can be drawn as the coating 
of a wire a thousand times thinner, to the 3400l j ouoo of 
an inch. But the atoms are still heaped one upon an- 
other. 

Take some of the infusorial animals. Alonzo Gray 
says millions of them would not equal in bulk a grain 
of sand. Yet each of them performs the functions of 
respiration, circulation, digestion, and locomotion. Some 

our bl !- are not a millionth of our Bize. 

What must be the Bize of the ultimate particles that 
freely move about to nourish an animal whose totality 
Lb I stimate? A grain of musk gives off 

atoms enough * ery part of the air of a room. 

You detect it above, below, on every side. Then let 
the zephyrs of summer and the blasts of winter sweep 
through that room for fori s >ut into the 

wide world miles on miles of air. all perfumed from the 

mU8k, and at the end of the forty 
musk has not appreciably dimin- 



256 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 

ished. Yet uncountable myriads on myriads of atoms 
have gone. 

Our atom is not found yet. Many are the ways of 
searching for it which we cannot stop to consider. We 
will pass in review the properties with which materi- 
alists preposterously endow it. It is impenetrable and 
indivisible, though some atoms are a hundred ti:i 
larger than others. Each lias definite shape; some one 
shape, and some another. They differ in weight, in 
quantity of combining power, in quality of combining 
power. They combine with different substances, in cer- 
tain exact assignable quantities. Thns one atom of hy- 
drogen combines with eighty of bromine, one hundred 
and sixty of mercury, two hundred and forty <>n><>r..n, 
three hundred and twenty <>f silicon, etc. Hence our 
atom of hydrogen must have power to count, or at le 
to measure, or be cognizant of bulk. Again, atoms are 
of different sorts, as positive or negative to electric 
currents. They have power t<> take different shapes 
with different atoms in crystallization; that is, there is 
a power in them, conscious or otherwise, that the same 
bricks shall make themselves into .-tables or palace-, -ew- 
ers or pavements, according as the mortar varies. " No, 
no," you cry out; "it is only according as the builder 
varies his plan." There is no need to rehearse these 
powers much further; though not one -tenth of the 
supposed innate properties of this infinitesimal infinite 
have been recited — properties which are expressed by the 
words atomicity, quantivilence, monad, dryad, univalent, 
perissad, quadrivalent, and twenty other terms, each ex- 
pressing some endowment of power in this invisible 
atom. Refer to one more presumed ability, an ability 



THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 257 

to keep themselves in exact relation of distance and 
power to each other, without touching. 

It is well known that water does not till the space it 
occupies. We can put eight or ten similar hulks of 
different substances into a glass of water without great- 
ly increasing its bulk, some actually diminishing it. A 
philosopher has said that the atoms of oxygen and hy- 
drogen are probably not nearer to each other in water 
than one hundred and fifty men would be if scattered 
over the surface of England, one man to four hundred 
square mil 

The atoms of the luminiferous ether are infinitely 
mure diffused, and yet its interactive atoms can give 
four hundred millions of light-waves a second. And 
now, more preposterous than all, each atom has an at- 
tractive power for every other atom of the universe. 
The little mote, visible only in a sunbeam streaming 
through a dark room, and the atom, infinitely smaller, 
has a grasp upon the whole world, the far-off sun, and 
the stars that people infinite space. The Sage of Con- 
cord advisee yon to hitch your wagon to a Btar. But 
this is hitching all stars to an infinitesimal part of a 
wagon. Such an atom, so dowered, so infinite, so con- 
scious, is an impossible conception. 

But if matter could be BO dowered as to produce such 

nilts by mechanism, could it be dowered to produce 
the results of intelligence I Could it be dowered with 
power of choice without becoming mind? If oxygen 
and hydrogen Could be made able to combine into wa- 
ter, could the same unformed manor produce in one 

-•< a plant, in another a bird, in a third a man; and 
in each of these put bone, brain, blood, and none in 



258 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 

proper relations? Matter must be mind, or subject to 
a present working- mind, to do this. There must be a 
present intelligence directing the process, laying the 
dead bricks, marble, and wood in an intelligent order 
for a living temple. If we do put God behind a single 
veil in dead matter, in all living things he must be ap- 
parent and at work. If, then, such a thing as an infi- 
nite atom is impossible, Bhall we not best understand 
matter by saying it is a visible representation of God's 
personal will and power, of his personal force, and per- 
haps knowledge set aside a little from himself, still 
possessed somewhat of his personal attributes, still re- 
sponsive to his will. What we call matter may be best 
understood as God's force, will, knowledge, rendered 
apparent, static, and unweariably operative. Unl 
matter is eternal, which is unthinkable, there was noth- 
ing out of which the world could be made, but G<>d 
himself; and, reverently be it said, matter seems to re- 
tain fit capabilities for such source. Is not this the 
teaching of the Bible \ I come to the old Book. I come 
to that man who was taken up into the arcana of the 
third heaven, the holy of holies, and heard things im- 
possible to word. I find he makes a clear, unequivocal 
statement of this truth as God's revelation to him. 
"By faith," says the author of Hebrews, " we under- 
stand the worlds were framed by the word of God, so 
that things which are seen were not made of things 
which do appear." In Corinthians, Paul says — But to 
us there is but one God, the Father, of whom [as a 
source] are all things ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by 
whom [as a creative worker] are all things. So in Ro- 
mans he says — "For out of him, and through him, and 
to him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen/' 



THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 259 

God's intimate relation to matter is explained. No 
wonder the forces respond to his will ; no wonder pan- 
theism — the idea that matter is God— has had BUch a 
hold upon the minds of men. Matter, derived from him, 
hears marks of its parentage, is sustained by him, and 
when the Divine will shall draw it nearer to himself 
the new power and capabilities of a new creation shall 
appear. Let us pay a higher respect to the attractions 
and affinities; to the plan and power of growth ; to the 
wisdom of the ant; the geometry of the bee; the mi- 
grating instinct that rises and stretches its wings toward 
a provided South — for it is all God's present wisdom 
and power. Let us come to that true insight of the 
old prophets, who are fittingly called seers; whose eyes 
pierced the veil of matter, and saw God clothing the 
grass of the field, feeding the sparrows, giving snow 
like wool and scattering hoar-frost like ashes, and ever 
standing on the bow of our wide -sailing world, and 
ever saying to all tumultuous forces, " Peace, be still/" 
Let us, with more reverent step, walk the leafy soli- 
tude.-, and Bay : 

" Father, thy hand 
Hath reared these venerable columns. Thou 

Sl weave thi> verdant roof. Thou did'ttt look down 

II the naked earth, and forthwise I 
All these fair rank- They in Thy BtM 

B idded, and shook their green leaves in Thy breeze. 

-t flower, 
Wil \h and looks 10 like a Bin 

mi mould, 
An emanation of the indwelling Me, 
A \ iaibl infolding 1 

Thai are the soul of this a ide nnii Brt wt. 



260 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 

Philosophy has seen the vast machine of the uni- 
verse, wheel within wheel, in countless numbers and 
hopeless intricacy. But it has not had the spiritual 
insight of Ezekiel to see that they were every one of 
them full of eyes — God's own emblem of the omni- 
scient supervision. 

What if there are some sounds that do not seem to be 
musically rhythmic. I have seen where an avalanche 
broke from the mountain side and buried a hapli 
city; have seen the face of a cliff shattered to frag- 
ments by the weight of its superincumbent mass, or 
pierced by the fingers of the frost and torn away. All 
these thunder down the valley and are pulverized to 
sand. Is this music? No, but it is a tuning of instru- 
ments. The rootlets seize the sand and turn it to soil, 
to woody fibre, leafy verdure, blooming flowers, and de- 
licious fruit. This asks life to come, partake, and be 
made strong. The grass gives itself to all flesh, the 
insect grows to feed the bird, the bird to nourish the 
animal, the animal to develop the man. 

Notwithstanding the tendency of all high-class energy 
to deteriorate, to find equilibrium, and so be strength- 
Jess and dead, there is, somehow, in nature a tremen- 
dous push upward. Ask any philosopher, and he will 
tell you that the tendency of all endowed forces is to 
find their equilibrium and be at rest — that is, dead. 
He draws a dismal picture of the time when the sun 
shall be burned out, and the world float like a charnel 
ship through the dark, cold voids of space — the sun a 
burned-out char, a dead cinder, and the world one dis- 
mal silence, cold beyond measure, and dead beyond con- 
sciousness. The philosopher has wailed a dirge with- 



THE ULTIMATE FORCR 261 

out hope, a requiem without grandeur, over the world's 
future. But nature herself, to all ears attuned, sings 
pawns, and shouts to men that the highest energy, that 
of lite, does not deteriorate. 

Mere nature may deteriorate. The endowments of 
force must spend themselves. Wound-up watches and 
worlds must run down. But nature sustained by un- 
expendable forces must abide. Nature tilled with un- 
expendable forces continues in form. Nature impelled 
by a magnificent push of life must ever rise. 

Study her history in the past. Sulphurous realms 
of deadly gases become solid worlds; surplus sunlight 
becomes coal, which is reserved power; surplus carbon 
becomes diamonds : sediments settle until the heavens 
are azure, the air pure, the water translucent. If that is 
the progress of the past, why should it deteriorate in 
the future \ 

There is a Bystem of laws in the universe in which 
the higher have mastery over the lower. Lower pow- 
ers are constitutionally arranged to be overcome; high- 
er powers are constitutionally arranged for mastery. 
At <>ne time the water lies in even layers near the 
ocean's bed, in obedience to the law or power <>f gravi- 
tation. At another time it is heaved into mountain 
billows by the shoulders of the wind. Again it ilies 
aloft in the rising mists of the morning, transfigured 

by a thousand rainbows by the higher powers of the 

Mm. Again it develops the enormous force of steam 
the power of heat. Again it divides into two light 
fly:- ctricity. Again it stands upright 

a heap by the power of some law in the spirit realm, 
whose mode of working we are nol yet large enough 



262 



THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 



to comprehend. The water is solid, liquid, gaseous on 
earth, and in air according to the grade of power oper- 
ating upon it. 

The constant invention of man finds higher and 
higher powers. Once he throttled his game, and often 
perished in the desperate struggle; then he trapped it; 
then pierced it with the javelin ; then shot it with an 
arrow, or set the springy gases to hurl a rifle-ball at it. 
Sometime he may point at it an electric spark, and it 
shall be his. Once he wearily trudged his twenty miles 
a day, then he took the horse into service and made 
sixty; invoked the Wind8, and rode on their steady 
wings two hundred and forty ; tamed the Bteain, and 
made almost one thousand; and if he cannot yet Bend 
his body, he can his mind, one thousand miles a second. 
It all depends upon the grade of power he uses. Now, 
hear the grand truth of nature: as the years prog 
the higher grades of power increase. Either by discov- 
ery or creation, there are still higher class forces to he 
made available. Once there was no air, no usable elec- 
tricity. There is no lack of those higher powers now. 
The higher we go the more of them we find. Mr. 
Lockyer says that the past ten years have been years of 
revelation concerning the sun. A man could not read 
in ten years the library of books created in that time 
concerning the sun. But though we have solved cer- 
tain problems and mysteries, the mysteries have in- 
creased tenfold. 

We do not know that any new and higher forces 
have been added to matter since man's acquaintance 
with it. But it would be easy to add any number of 
them, or change any lower into higher. That is the 



THE ULTIMATE FORCE 263 

meaning of the falling granite that becomes soil, of the 

pulverized lava that decks the volcano's trembling sides 
with flowers; that is the meaning of the grass becom- 
ing flesh, and of all high forces constitutionally ar- 
ranged for mastery over lower. Take the ore from 
the mountain. It is loose, friable, worthless in itself. 
liaise it in capacity to cast-iron, wrought- iron, steel, 
it becomes a highway for the commerce of nations, 
over the mountains and under them. It becomes 
bones, muscles, body for the inspiring soul of steam. 
It holds up the airy bridge over the deep chasm. It 
is obedient in your hand as blade, hammer, bar, or 
spring. It is inspirable by electricity, and bears hu- 
man hopes, fears, and loves in its own bosom. It has 
been raised from valueless ore. Change it again to 
something as far above steel as that is above ore. 
Change all earthly ores to highest possibility; string 
them to finest tissues, and the new result may fit God's 
hand as tools, and thrill with his wisdom and creative 
pr< i body fitted for God's spirit as well as the 

steel is fitted to your hand. From this world take 
(.parity, gravity, darkness, bring in more mind, love, 
and God, and then we will have heaven. An imma- 
nent God makes a plastic world. 

When man shall have mastered the forces that now 
exi.-t, the original Creator and Sustainer will Bay," He- 
bold. I all things new." Nature .-hall be called 
nearer to God, be more full of his power. To the long- 
wandering JSneas, his divine mother Bometimes came 
to cheer his heart and to direct Iris steps. Bnt the god- 
ily Bhowed herself divine by her departure ; only 

when he Btood in desolation did the hero know he had 



261 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 

stood face to face with divine power, beauty, and love. 
Not so the Christian scholars, the wanderers in Nature's 
bowers to-day. In the first dawn of discovery, we see 
her full of beauty and strength ; in closer communion, 
we find her full of wisdom ; to our perfect knowledge, 
she reveals an indwelling God in her ; to our ardent 
love, she reveals an indwelling God in us. 

But the evidence of the progressive refinements of 
habitation is no more clear than that of progressive re- 
finement of the inhabitant: there must be some one to 
use these finer tilings. An empty house is not God's 
ideal nor man's. The child may handle a toy, but a man 
must mount a locomotive ; and before there can be New 
Jerusalems with golden streets, there must be men more 
avaricious of knowledge than of gold, or they would dig 
them up; more zealous for love than jewels, or they 
would unhang the pearly gates. The uplifting refine- 
ment of the material world has been kept back until 
there should appear masterful spirits able to handle the 
higher forces. Doors have opened on every side to new 
realms of power, when men have been able to wield 
them. If men lose that ability they close again, and 
shut out the knowledge and light. Then ages, dark and 
feeble, follow. 

Some explore prophecy for the date of the grand 
transformation of matter by the coming of the Son of 
Man, for a new creation. A little study of nature would 
show that the date cannot be fixed. A little study of 
Peter would show the same thing. lie says, " What 
manner of persons ought ye to be, in all holy conven- 
tion and godliness, looking for and hastening the com- 
ing of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on 



THE ULTIMATE FORi E 265 

6re shall In* dissolved, and the elements shall mell with 
fervent heat i Nevertheless we, according to his prom- 
ise, look for a new heaven and a new earth." 

The idea is, that the grand transformation of matter 

waits the readiness of man. The kingdom waits the 
king. The scattered cantons of Italy were only pros- 
trate provinces till Victor Emanuel came, then they 
were developed into united Italy. The prostrate prov- 
inces of matter are not developed until the man is vic- 
tor, able to rule there a realm equal to ten cities here. 
Every good man hastens the coming of the day of God 
and nature's renovation. Not only does inference teach 
that there must be finer men, but fact affirms that trans- 
formation has already taken place. Life is meant to 
have power over chemical forces. It separates carbon 
fr<»m its compounds and builds a tree, separates the ele- 
ments and bnilds the body, holds them separate until 
life withdraws. More life means higher being. Cer- 
tainly men can be refined and incapacitated as well as 
(.re In Ovid's %> Metamorphoses *' lie represents the 
lion in process "f formation from earth, hind quarters 
>till clay, but fore quarters, head, erect mane, and blaz- 
ing eye — live li<>n — and pawing t<> get free. We have 
1 spirits yet linked to forms of clay, but beat- 
ing the celestial air, endeavoring to be free; and we 
have seen them, dowered with new sight, filled with new 
. break loose and rise to higher being. 
In this --rand apotheosis of man which nature teaches, 
prog ready been made. Man has already out- 

grown his harmony with the environment of mere mat- 
ter. He has given his hand to science, and been lifted 
up above the earth into the voids of infinite -pace. He 

12 



2G6 THE ULTIMATE FORCE 

has gone on and on, till thought, wearied amidst the in- 
finities of velocity and distance, has ceased to note them. 
But he is not content; all his faculties are not tilled. 
lie feels that his future self is in danger of not beinir 
satisfied with space, and worlds, and all mental delights, 
even as his manhood fails to be satisfied with the ma- 
teriel toys of his babyhood. lie asks for an Author and 
Maker of things, infinitely above them. lie has seen 
wisdom unsearchable, power illimitable; but he asks for 
personal sympathy and love. Paul expresses his feel- 
ing: every creature — not the whole creation — groaneth 
and travailetll in pain together until now, waiting for 
the adoption — the uplifting from orphanage to parent- 
age — a translation out of darkness into the kingdom 
of God's dear Son. lie hears that a man in Christ 
is a new creation: old things pass away, all thing.- be- 
come new. There is then a possibility of finding the 
Author of nature, and the Father of man. lie begins 
his studies anew. Now he sees that all lines of knowl- 
edge converge as they go out toward the infinite mys- 
tery; sees that these converging lines are the reins of 
government in this world; sees the converging lines 
grasped by an almighty hand; sees a loving face and 
form behind; sees that these lines of knowledge and 
power are his personal nerves, along which flashes his 
will, and every force in the universe answers like 4 a 
perfect muscle. 

Then lie asks if this Personality is as full of love as 
of power. He is told of a tenderness too deep for tears, 
a love that has the Cross for its symbol, and a dying 
cry for its expression: seeking it, he is a new creation. 
He sees more wondrous tinners in the Word than in the 



THE ULTIMATE FORCE 267 

world. He comes to know God with his heart, better 
than he knows God's works by his mind. 

Every song closes with the key-note with which it be- 

gan,and the brief cadence at the close hints the realms 
of sound through which it has tried its wings. The 
brief cadence at the close is this: All force runs back 
into mind for its source, constant support, and uplifts 
into higher grades. 

Mr. Grove says, " Causation is the will, creation is the 
act, of God." Creation is planned and inspired for the 
attainment of constantly rising results. The order is 
chaos, light, worlds; vegetable forms, animal life, then 
man. There is no reason to pause here. This is not 
perfection, not even perpetuity. Original plans arc not 
accomplished, nor original force exhausted. In another 
world, free from sickness, sorrow, pain, and death, per- 
fection of abode is offered. Perfection of inhabitant 
i> necessary; and as the creative power is everywhere 
present for the various uplifts and refinements of mat- 
ter, ir i- everywhere present with appropriate power 
i^v the uplifting and refinement of mind and spirit 



TO FIND THE STARS IN THE SKY. 

Detach any of the following maps, appropriate to the time 
of year, hold it between you and a lantern out-of-doors, and 
you have an exact miniature of the sky. Or, better, cut squares 
of suitable sizes from the four sides of a box ; put a map over 
each aperture ; provide for ventilation, and turn the box over 
a lamp or candle out-of-doors. Use an opera glass to find the 
smaller stars, if one is accessible. 





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HERCULES 


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I polar Com In tin- position. — i.-um u ■>• 20th, 'it 

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A '_ i Ifl on the Meridian, 51° South of Pole.— At 10 o'clock, December 7th; 9 o'clock, 
December 22d ; S o'clock, January 5th. 



K V R 


Pleiades 
I G A ;• '• 


R 


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...• ..I. the Mei dlan at B o'clock 
i uraary fth. 




Regnlus comes on the Meridian, 79° south from the Pole, at 10 o'clock March 23d, 
o'clock April Sth, and at S o'clock April 23d. 




Aretai from the Pole, t! i«» o'< la 

'Hi, and tl -Mli. 

i.". 




Altair comes to the Meridian, S2° from the Pole, at 10 o'clock p.m. August l&th, at 
9 o'clock September 2d, and at 8 o'clock September 18th. 




Foinalhaut comes lo the Meridian, only IT - from the horizon, at "5 o'clock NoYem- 

ber 4th. 



SXJMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES AND 
CONCLUSIONS, 

Movements on the Sun, — The discovery and measurement of 

the up-rusb, down-rush, and whirl of currents about the sun- 
spots, also of the determination of the velocity of rotation by 
means of the spectroscope, as described (page 53), is one of the 
most delicate and difficult achievements of modern science. 

Movement of Start in Line of Sight (page 51). — The fol- 
lowing table shows this movement of stars, so far as at present 
known : 



Al'l'UOACIUNG. 


Bhoeding. 


Map. 


Name. 


Kate 
per i*ec 


Map. 

Fi- 69 
Fr piece 

.4 

Fig. 69 

44 70 


Name. 


Kate 
per Bee. 


Fig. 71 

44 72 
44 73 

44 
44 67 


Arcttirus 


5o miles 
50 " 

39 •• 

4G 44 


Sirius 


20 mi lea 
22 
15 " 

25 44 
15 4 ' 


Betelguese ... 
Rigel 


jni 

Pollux 

Dublie 


Castor 

Regulufl 



Suri } s Appearance, — This was formerly supposed to be an 
q, regular, dazzling brightness, except where the spots ap- 
peared. I>ut the sun's surface is now known to be mottled 
with what are called rice grains or willow leaves. But the 
tins an* as large as the continent of America. The 
spaces between are ••ailed pores. They constitute an innumer- 
able number of small spots. This appearance of the general 
surface is well portrayed in the cut on page 92. 

Close Relation between Sun and Earth, — Men always knew 

that the earth received light from the sun. They subsequently 

red that th< earth was momentarilj held by the powei 



270 SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES, ETC. 

of gravitation. But it is a recent discovery that the light ifl 
one of the principal agents in chemical changes, in molecular 
grouping and world- building, thus making all kinds of life 
possible (p. 30-3G). The close connection of the sun and 
the earth will be still farther shown in the relation of sun-spots 
and auroras. One of the most significant instances is related 
on page 19, when the earth felt the fall of bolides upon the 
sun. Members of the body no more answer to the heart than 
the planets do to the sun. 

Hydrogen Flames. — It has been demonstrated that the sun 
ilames 200,000 miles high are hydrogen in a state of flaming 
incandescence (page So). 

Surf* Distance. — The former estimate, 95,513,794 mile-, baa 
been reduced by nearly one-thirtieth. Lockyer ha- Btatcd it 
low as 89,895,000 miles, and Proctor, in " Encyclopaedia Bri- 
tannica," at 91,430,000 miles, hut discovered errors show that 
these estimates are too small. Newcomh gives 92,400,000 B8 
within 200,000 miles of the correct distance. The data for a 
new determination of this distance, obtained from the transit 
of Venus, December 8th, 1874, have not yet been deciphered : 
a fact that shows the difficulty and laborionsness of the work. 
Meanwhile it begins to be evident that observations of the 
transit of Venus do not afford the besl basis for the most per- 
fect determination of the suifs distano 

Since the earth's distance is our astronomical unit of meas- 
ure, it follows that all other distances will be changed, when 
expressed in miles, by this ascertained change of the value of 
the standard. 

Oxygen in the Sun. — In 1877 Professor Draper announced 
the discovery of oxygen lines in the spectrum of the sun. The 
discovery was doubted, and the methods used were criticised by 
Lockyer and others, but later and more delicate experiment- 
substantiate Professor Draper's claim to the discovery. The 
elements known to exist in the sun are salt, iron, hydrogen, 



SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES^ ETC. 271 

magnesium, barium, copper, zinc, cromiam, and nickel. Some 
elements in the sun are scarcely, if at all, discoverable on the 
earth, and some on tlir earth not yet discernible in the Ban. 

s \f Stars, — Aldebaran {Frontispiece) shows Bait, 

magnesium, hydrogen, calcium, iron, bismuth, tellurium, anti- 
mony, and mercury. Some of the sun's metals do not appear. 
Stars differ in their very Bubstance, and will, no doubt, introduce 
new elements to us unknown before. 

The theory that all nebulae are very distant clusters of stars 
i> utterly disproved by the clearest proof that ><>me of them are 
only incandescent gases of one <>r two kinds. 

Du \ of New Bodies, — Vulcan, the planet nearest the 

sun (pauv L38). The two satellites of Mars were discovered by 
Mr. Hall, U. s. Naval Observatory, August 11th, is;: (page 
101 ). The outer one is called Dicmas; the inner, Phobus. 

Sir William Herschel thought lie discovered six satellih 
Uranus. The existence of four of them has been disproved by 
the researches of men with larger telescopes. Two new oi 
however, were discovered by Mr. Lassell in L846. 

S tern'* Rings arc proved to he in a state <>f fluidity and 
contraction (page 171). 

.1/ tears and Comets. — The orbits <»f over one hundred 
-warm- of meteoric bodies are fixed: their relation to, and in 
-..in.' cases indentity with, comets determined. Some comets 
aiv proved to be masses of great weight and solidity (page L33). 

Aerolites. — Some have a texture like our lowest strata of 
rocks. There is a geology of stars and meteors a- well a- of 
the earth. M. Ifeunier has just received the Lalande Medal 
from the Paris Academy for hi- treatise Bhoying that, bo far as 
our present knowledge can determine, some of these meteors 
globe developed in true geological epochs, 
and which ha- been separated into fragments bj agencies with 
which we ar<- id acquaint 

Tl>> Horizontal Pendulun I instrument is rep* 



272 SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES. ETC. 



resented in Fig. 82. It consists of an upright standard, strongly 
braced; a weight, m, suspended by the hair-spring of a watch, 
BD, and held in a horizontal position by another watch-spring, 
AC. The weight is deflected from side to side by the slight- 
est influence. The least change in the level of a base thirty- 
nine inches long that could be detected by a spirit-level is o".l 
of an arc — equal to raising one end go*as °f ;l11 ^ch. Bat the 

pendulum detect- a raising of one 
end Bfloo\)ooo of an inch. To ob- 
serve the movements of the pendu- 
lum, it is kept in a dark room, and a 
ray of light is directed t<> the mirror, 
m,and thence reflected upon a screen. 
'Jims tin; least movement may l»e enor- 
mously magnified, and read and m< 
ured by the moi ing >p<>t on the screen, 
It ha- been discovered that when the 
sun ri<es it has sufficient attraction to 
incline this instrument t«> the east : 
when it set>, to incline it to the west 
The same is true of the moi.n. When 
either is exactly overhead or under- 
foot, of course there is no deflection. 
The mean deflection cau>cd by the 
moon at rising or setting is 0".Ol74; 
by the sun, 0".00S. Great results are 
expected from this instrument hardly 
known as yet: among others, whether 
gravitation acts instantly or consumes 
time in coming from the sun. This will be shown by the time 
of the change of the pendulum from east to west when the sun 
reaches the zenith, and vice versa when it crosses the nadir. The 
sun will be best studied without light, in the quiet and dark] 
of some deep mine. 




Pig. S2.— Horizontal Pendulum. 



SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES, ETC, 273 

f Unseen Stars. — Prom careful examination, il ap- 
pears that three-fourths of the light on a fine starlight night 
comes from stars that cannot be discerned by the naked eye. 
The whole amount of star light is about one-eightieth of that 
of the full moon. 

Lateral Movements of Stars, page 226—28. 

Future Discoveries — -1 Trans-Neptunian Planet — Profi 
Asaph Hall says: "It is known to me that at least two Amer- 
ican astronomers, armed with powerful telescopes, have been 
searching quite recently for a trans-Neptunian planet. These 
searches have been caused by the fact that Professor New- 
comb's taMes of Uranus and Neptune already begin to differ 
from observation. But are we to infer from these errors of 
the planetary tables the existence of a trans-Neptunian planet i 
It i- possible that such a planet may exist, but the probability 
is I think, that the differences are caused by errors in the theo- 
of these planets. * * * A few years ago the remark was fre- 
quently made that the labors of astronomers on the solar system 
were finished, and that henceforth they could turn their whole 
attention to sidereal astronomy. But to-day we have the lunar 

theory in a very discouraging condition, and thy theories of 

Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all in need of 
revision : unless, indeed, Leverrier's theories of the last two plan- 
-id the test <>f observation. But, after all, such a 
lition of thin--- i< only the natural result of Ion- - and accu- 
rate Beries of observations, which make evident the small inequal- 
in the motions, and bring to light the errors of theory." 
Future discoveries will mostly reveal the laws and conditions 
of the higher and finer forces. Already Professor Loomis tele- 
graphs twenty miles without win-, by the electric currents be- 
tween mountains. We begin to use electricity for light, and 
feel for ;i in' I omets and Auroras fthow it- pres- 

between worlds, and in the interstellar spaces. Let an- 
other Newton ari 

12* 



274 



ELEMENTS OF THE SOLA J: SYSTEM. 



W 
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ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOLS 



275 



EXPLANATION OF ASTRONOMICAL BYMBOIA 

BION8 OF TIIK ZODIAC. 

=£= Libra 180 

ill Scorpio 810 

; Sagittarius 240 

\ ) Capricorntu 270 

g? Aquarius 300 

~ Pisces 



a T Arios 





VI. 


I. v Taurus 


90 


VII. 


II. 11 Gemini 


60 


VIII. 


III. C? Cancer 


90 


IX. 


IV. s\ Leo 


120 


X. 


V. flJJ Virgo 


150 


XL 


1 injunction. 






□ Quail rat ure. 






S Opposition. 






Q Ascending Node 






r\ Descending Node. 






11. Bonis. 




Decl. 


M. Minutes of Time. 




N.] 



S. Seconds of Time. 
Degrees. 

Minutes of Arc. 
ffldfl of Arc. 

B, A. Right Ascension. 

Decl. or I). Declination. 

P. I). Dist. from North Pole. 



OTHER ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE ALMANAC. 

nth, /.<.. crosses the meridian: Iff., morning; A, afternoon; 
Gr. IL L. N.. greatest heliocentric latitude north, i.e., greatest distance 

north of the ecliptic as -ecu from the sun. J Q Q Inf., inferior con- 
junction ; Sup., superior conjunction. 



GREEK ALPHABET USED INDICATING THE STARR 



a, alpha, 

/■J. beta. 

mma. 

lta. 

rilon. 



rj y eta. 
0, theta, 
/, iota. 
c, kappa. 
\, lambda. 

//. mil. 



r. 


nn. 


r, 


tau. 




xi. 


r. 


npsilon 


". 


omicron. 




phi 


- 


pi 


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pi 


rho. 


fc 


psL 


c - 




>■>. 





CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR STUDENTS. 

As an aid to comprehension, every student should draw illus- 
trative figures of the various circles, planes, and situations de- 
scribed. (For example, see Fig, 45, page 118.) As an aid t<> 
memory, the portion of this outline referring to each chapter 
should l>o examined at the close of the reading, and this mere 
sketch filled up to a perfect picture from recollection 

I. Creative Processes. — The dial-plate of the sky. Cause of different 

weights — on sun, moon. Two laws of gravity. Inertia. Fall of earth 
to sun per seeoncl. Forward motion. Elastic attraction. Perturbation 
of moon; of Jupiter and Saturn. Oscillations of planets, 

II. Ldght, — From condensation. Number of vibrations of red j violet. 
Thermometer agninst air. Aerolite against earth. Two bolides against 
the sun. Large eye. Velocity of light. Prism. Color means different 
vibrations. Music of light. Light reports substance of stars, Force of; 
bridge, rain, dispersion, intensities, reflection, refraction, decomposition. 

III. Astronomical Instruments. — Refracting telescope. Reflecting; 
largest. Spectroscope. Spectra of sun, hydrogen, sodium, etc. E made 
G by approach ; C by departure. Stars approach and recede. 

IV. Celestial Measurements. — Place and time by stars. Degrees, min- 
utes, seconds. Mapping stars. Mural circle. Slow watch. Hoc 
Tunnel. Fine measurements. Sidereal time. Spider-lines. Personal 
equation. Measure distance — height. Ten-inch base line. Parallax of 
sun, stars. Longitude at sea. Distance of Polaris, a Centauri, 61 Cygni. 
Orbits of asteroids. 

V. The Sun. — World on fire. Apparent size from planets. Zodiacal 
light. Corona. Hydrogen — how high? Size. How many earths? 
Spots: 1. Motion; 2. Edges; 3. Variable ; 4. Periodic; 5. Cyclonic; 
G.'Size ; 7. Velocities. What the sun does. Experiments. 

VI. The Planets from Space. — North Pole. Speed. Sizes. Axial 
revolution. Man's weight on. Seasons. Parallelism of axis. Earth near 



CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR STUDENTS 277 

sun in winter. Plane of ecliptic. Orbits inclined to. Earth rotates. 
Proof. Sun's path among stars. Position of planets. Motion — direct) 
retrograde. Experiments, 

VII. Meteors, — Size; number; cause of; above earth; velocity: col- 
ors; number in space j telescopic view of. Aerolites: Systems of; how 
many known. Comets: Orbits; number o( comets: llalley's : Biela's 
lost: Encke's. Resisting medium. Whence come comets ? Composed 
of what? Amount of matter in. 0. 

VIII. The Planets. — How many? Uranus discovered ? Neptune? As- 
teroids? Vulcan? Distance from sun. Periodic time Mercury: Ele- 
ments; shapes, as seen from earth ; transits. Venus: Elements; seen by 
day: how near earth? how far from? phases; Galileo. Earth: Ele- 
ments; in space; Aurora; balance Of forces. Tides: Main and sub- 
sidiary causes; eastern shores; Mediterranean Sea. Moon: Elements; 
hoax: moves east; see one side: three causes help to see more than 
half. Revolution: Why twenty-nine and a half days : heat — cold; how 
much light? Craters and peaks lighted; measured. Eclipses — Why 
not every new and full moon? Periodicity. Mais: Elements; how 
near earth? How far from? Apparent size; ice- fields: which end 
most? Satellites — Asteroids: How found ? When? By whom? How 
many? Jupiter: Elements; trade -winds; how much light received? 
Own heat. Satellites: How many? Colors. Saturn: Elements; Ins- 
tability: rings; flux: satellites. Uranus: Elements: discoverer: seen 
by; moons motion; Neptune: Elements: discovered by; how? Re- 
view system, 

IX. / A ilar Hypothesis. — State it: facts confirmatory. Objec- 
tions — 1. ition; 8. Retrograde; 4. Martial moons ; 5. Star 
of 1876. Evolution: Gaps in; conclusion. 

X. The £ ' in. — Motto. Man among stars ; open page; starry 

i. Thnban. Etanin. Constellations: Know 

them; numb' able: t Lyra-. Sirius, Procyon, Castor, <">1 

Vlrginis, Colored stars; change color. Clusters: Two theo- 

: Two visible; composed of; shapes; where? Variable 

. Sun. ■> Lyi Temporary j 1572. 

.;• of l 876. M of stars : 

. ( hrion, ( Ireal Dip- 
- nthern ( n Ity. 

XI. The World* am f.— Rich. Number. Erroneouj allusions. 

j . ing : 2. I -reation before arrangement : 
.'-. Light ■. ( hrder ofdevelopmenl ; 



278 CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR STUDENTS, 

G. Sphere of earth ; 7. How upheld ; 8. Number of stars ; 9. Weight of 
air; 10. Meteorology; 11. Queries to Job; VI. Sun to end of heaven; 
13. View of Mitchell; 14. HerscbeL What is matter? Force? End of 
earth. Way to knowledge. Work of light. Transfiguration of matter. 
Uniformitarianism. A whisper of Him. Man for mastery. Each a type 
of higher. Survival of fittest. Uranus. Worlds and Word one langu 

XII. The Ultimate Force. — Universe shows power : 1. Rain; Niagara; 
2. Vegetable growth ; .'>. Worlds carried ; 4. Sun ; till dome with worlds ; 
5. Double suns ; (J. Galaxies. Correlation. What ultimate ? Mind and 
will. What continuous relation ? Watch. Theories of gravitation : 
Newton's, Le Sage's, Bible's. High-class energy deteriorates. Search 
for atoms: 1. Microscope; 2. Gold; .">. [nfnsoria; 1. Mask. Proper- 
ties of atoms : 1. Impenetrable; 2. Indivisible; 8. Shape; 1. Quality ; 
5. Crystallization; (I. Not touch each other: 7. Active: S. Attractive; 
9. Intelligent. Whose? Relation of matter to God; rock to soil 
Tush upward. Highest has mastery. Man advances by highest. Mat- 
ter incapacitated. Refined habitations. Inhabitants. All force V 
back to mind. Personal and infinite. 



GLOSSAEY OF ASTRONOMICAL TERMS 
AND INDEX. 

Abbreviations used in astronomies, 275, 

Aberration of light (a wandering tMcoy), an apparent displace* 
incut of a star, owing to the progressive motion of light com- 
bined with that of the earth and its orbit, L99. 

Aerolite (air-stont ), 122. 

Air, refraction of the, 40. 

Algol, tlie variable star. 223. 

Almanac, Nautical. 71 : explanation of signs used, 275. 

Alphabet. Greek, 275. 

Altitude, angular elevation of a body above the horizon. 

Angle, difference in directions of two straight lines that meet. 

Annular {ring-shaped) eclipses, 158 : nebulae, 218, 220. 

Aphelion, the point in an orbit farthest from the sun. 

Apogee, the point of an orbit which is farthest from the earth. 

Apsis. plural apsides, the line joining the aphelion and perihelion 
points : or the major axis of elliptical orbits. 

Axe. a part of a circle. 

Ascension, right, the angular distance of a heavenly body from 
the first ]><»int of Aries, measured <»n the equator. 

Asteroids (star-fife ), 162; orbits of interlaced, 74. 

Astronomical instruments, 4:5. 

Astronomy, use of, 57. 

Atom, size of, 256 : power of, 256. 

Aurora Borealis. 1 13. 

Axis, the line about which a body rotates. 

Azimuth, the angular distance of any poinl or body in the horizon 
from the nort h <>r soul h points. 

Bailey's beads, dots of light <>n the edge of the moon seen in n so- 
lar ecli] d by the moon's inequalities of surface. 

Base line 

Biela's comet, 1 29. 

Binary system. ;i double star, the component parts of which re- 
volve ;m>nnd their centre of gravity. 

Bodes law of planetary distances is no law at all.l.ut a study of 
coincide] 

Bolides, -mall masses of matter in space. They are usually called 
meteors when luminous by contact with air, 120. 



280 GLOSSARY AND IXDEX. 

Celestial sphere, flic apparent dome in wbich the heavenh bodies 
seem to be .set ; appears to revolve, 3. 

Centre of gravity, the point on which a body, or two or mon 
lated bodies, balances. 

Centrifugal force (centre fleeing). 

Chromolithic plate of spectra of metals, to face .">(>. 

Circumpolar stars, map of north, 201. 

Colors of stars, 214. 

Colures, the four principal meridians of the celestial sphere pass- 
ing from the pole, one through each equinox, and one through 
each solstice. 

Comets, 1 •->(); Halley's, 128 ; Biela's lost, 129 ; Enoke's, 190 j oonsti- 

tntion of, 131 ; will they strike the earth \ 133. 
Conjunction. Two or nunc bodies are in conjunction when they 
are in a straight line (disregarding inclination of orbit) with the 

sun. Planets nearer the sun than the earth are in inferior con- 
junction when they are bet ween the earth and the mid : superior 
conjunction when they are beyond the sun. 
Constellation, a group of stars supposed to represent some fignre: 
circnmpolar,201 ; equatorial, for December, 202; for January . 203 ; 
April, 204; Jnne, 205; September, 206 j November, 207 ; southern 
circumpolar, 206. 

Culmination, the passage of a heavenly body across the meridian 
or south point of a place; it ifl the highest point reached in its 
path. 

Cusp, the extremities of the crescent form of the moon or an inte- 
rior planet. 

Declination, the angular distance of a celest ial body north or south 
from the celestial equator, 

Degree, the g£g part of a circle. 

Direct motion, a motion from west to east among stars. 

Disk, the visible surface of sun. moon, or planets. 

Distance of stars, 70. 

Double stars, 210. 

Earth, revolution of, 109: in space, 14-2: irregular fignre, 14.~>. 

Eccentricity of an ellipse, the distance of either focus from centre 
divided by half the major axis. 

Eclipse (a disappearance), 157. 

Ecliptic, the apparent annual path of the sun among the stars j 
plane of, 106. 

Egress, the passing of one body off the disk of another. 

Elements, the quantities which determine the motion of a planet : 
data for predicting astronomical phenomena ; table of solar. *J74. 

Elements, chemical, present in the sun, '270. 

Elongation, the angular distance of a planet from the sun. 

Emersion, the reappearance of a body after it lias been eclipsed or 
occulted by another. 



GLOSSARY AND INDEX. 281 

Equator, terrestrial, the great circle half-way between the poles 
the earth. When the plane of this is extended to the heaveusj 
the Line of contact is called the celestial equator. 

Equinox, either of the points in which the sun. in its apparent an- 
nual course amoug the stars, crosses the equator, making days 
and nights of equal length. 

Evolution, materialistic, 182; insufficient, 189. 

Fizeau determines the velocity of light, 23, 

Forces, delicate balance of, 1 \\. 

Galileo, construction o( lu> telescope, 43. 

Geocentric, a position of a heavenly body as seen or measured from 
the earth's centre. 

Geodesy, the art of measuring the earth without reference to the 
heavenly bodies. 

God, relation i^W to the universe, 258. 

Gravitation, laws of, 6; extends to the stars, i:» ; theories of, 253. 

Gravity on different bodies, 6, 274. 

Helical, rising or setting of a star, as near to sunrise or sunset as u 
can be seen. 

Heliocentric, as seen from the centre of the sun. 

Hoosac Tunnel, example of accuracy. 62, 

Horizontal pendulum. 272, 

Immersion, the disappearance of one body held ml another, or in 
its shadow. 

Inclination of an orbit, the angle between its plane and the plane 
of the ecliptic 

Inferior conjunction, when an interior planet is between the earth 
and the >un. 

Jupiter, apparent path of, in 1866,112; elements of, 164 ; satellites 
of, 165; positions of satellites, 166 ; elements of satellites, I66j 
tin- Jovian system, 1 

Kepler's Laws - l-t. that the orbits of planets are ellipses, having 
the sun or central body in one of the foci; 2d, the radius-vector 
pass jii.il spaces in equal times; 3d, the squares of the 

periodic times of the planets air in proportion to the cubes of 
their mean distances from the sun. 

Latitude, the angular distance of a heavenly body from the ecliptic. 

Light, the eld Id of force, IT : number of vibrations of, L8, 25 ; \ «•!<><•- 
ity of, 22; nndnlatory and musical, 26; chemical force of, 30; ex- 
periments with, 37; approach and departure of a light-giving 
body up 51 : aberration of, 199. 

Limb, the edge of the disk of the moon, sun, or a planet. 

Longitude. If a perpendicular be dropped from a body to the 
ecliptic, it> celestial longitude i-> tin- distance of the fool of the 
perpendicular from tie- vernal equinox, counted toward the 
mode <»f ascei tabling tei resti tal, 72, 

Magellanic clouds, -J 



282 GLOSSARY AND INDEX. 

Mars, 159; snow spots of, 1G0 ; satellites of, 161. 

Mass, the quantity of matter a body contains. 

Mean distance of a planet, half the sum of the aphelion ami peri- 
helion distances. 

Measurements, celestial, 57. 

Mercury, 138. 

Meridian, terrestrial, of a place, a great circle of the heavens pi 
ing through the poles, the zenith, and the north aud south points 
of the horizon; celestial, any great circle passing from one pole 
to the ot her. 

Meteors, 119; b warm of, meeting the earth, 118; explosion of, 120; 
systems of, L23; relation of, to comets, 124. 

Micrometer, any hist rmiient for the accurate measurement of very 
small distances or angles. 

Mind, origin of force, 252; continuous relation of, to the universe, 

Milky Way, 210, 215. 

Mira, the Wonderful, 221. 

Moon, the, 151 ; greatest aud Least distance from t he earth, lo ; tele- 
scopic appearance of, !.">;>. 

Mural circle, 61. 

Nadir, the point in the celestial sphere directly beneath our i 
Opposite to zenith. 

Nebulae, 217. 

Nebular hypothesis, not atheistic. L82; Mated, L82; confirmatory 
tacts, 183; objections to, L85. 

Neptune, (dements of, 1?."). 

Node, the poiut in which an orbil intersects the ecliptic, or other 
plane of reference ; ascending, descending, line of, 107. 

Occultation, the hiding of a star, planet, or satellite by the inter- 
position of a nearer body of greater angular magnitude. 

Opposition. A superior planet is in opposition when the sun, 
earth, and the planet are in a line, the earth being in the middle. 

Orbit, the path of a planet, comet, or meteor around the sun, or of 
a satellite around a primary; inclination of, 1<>i"»: earth's, 
from the stars, ?(). 

Outline for students, 276. 

Parallax, the difference of direction of a heavenly body as seen 
from two points, as the centre of the earth and some point of its 
surface, CO. 

Parallels, imaginary circles on the earth or in the heavens parallel 
to the equator, having the poles for their centre. 

Perigee, nearest the earth: said of a point in an orbit. 

Perihelion, the point of an orbit nearest the sun. 

Periodic time, time of a planet's, comet's, or satellite's revolution. 

Personal equation, 65. 

Perturbation, the effect of the attractions of the planets or other 



GLOSSARY AXIj INDEX. 283 

bodies upon each other, disturbing t In ir regular motion : of SsUr 
urn and Jupiter, 11 : of asteroids, 13 : of Uranus and Neptune, 17©\ 

Phases, t ho portions of the illuminated half oftbe moon or infe- 
rior planet, aa seen from the earth, called orescent, full, and gib- 
bons. 

Photosphere o( the bui 

Planet (a wanderer), as seen from space 99 : speed <)i\ L01 : bum of, 
lo-J: movements retrograde and direct, 112, 

Pointers, the. 197. 

Pole. North, movement of, 196. 

Poles, the extremities of an imaginary line on which a celestial 

body rotates. 
Quadrant, the fourth part of the circumference of a circle, or 90 . 
Quadrature, a position of the moon or other body when 90 from 

the sun. 
Radiant point, that point o( the heavens from which meteors seem 

to diverge, Lid 
Radius-vector, an imaginary line joining the sun and a planet or 

comet in any part of its orbit. 
Rain, weight of, 249. 
Reflecting telescope. 44. 
Refracting telescope. 43. 
Refraction, a bending of light by passing through any medium. a^ 

air, water, prism. 
Retrograde motion, t he apparent movement of a planet from east 

to west among the Btars. 
Revolution, the movement of bodies about their centre of gravity. 
Rotation, the motion of a body around its axis. 
Satellites, ^mailer bodies revolving around planets and stars. 
Saturn, elements of, 167 ; revolution of, 168 ; rings of, 169; deer 

ing, 171 : nature of. 171 : satellites of. 172. 
Seasons, of the earth, 102 : of other planets, 106. 
Selenography (tomography ), a description of the moon*s snri 
Signs of the zodiac, the twelve equal part-, of :»<» each, Into n hich 

the EOdiaC IS divided. 
Solar system, view of, 100, 1??. 
Solstices, tlio^e points oftbe ecliptic which are most distant from 

the equatoc The mid pas s e s one about June 21st, and the other 

about December Slaty giving the longest da} b and uights. 
Spectroscope. 16. 
Spectrum of sun and metals, 54 L 
Stars, chemistry o£28; distance of, 70 73; mode of naming, 196; 

nu ml mi of, 210; double and multiple, 210 ; colored, 214; clusters 

of, 215; \aiiaMe. 220 ; temporal 823; movements 

of lateral, 226; in line of sight, S 
Stationary points, places in a planet's orbi I at which it baa do mo 

tion amo 



NewcomVs Popular Astronomy. 



Professor Newcomb carefully avoids the temptation held out to him by 
many parts of the subject to write for effect ; he keeps always faithfully 
to his purpose, setting forth, with respect to every subject discussed, the 
history of the investigations made, the positive, certain results attained, 
and the conjectures which astronomers have founded upon these results, 
together with the reasoning on which each conjecture rests and the objec- 
tions that exist to its acceptance. He is, in a word, singularly conscien- 
tious and perfectly frank; but the Bubject itself is BO full of wonders that 
even when treated in this calm, scientific spirit, its discussion is entran- 
cingly interesting; and Professor Newcomb's work, written Bfl it is in a 
perfectly clear, simple, and direct style, is likely, we think, to become more 
than ordinarily popular. — A'. )'. Evening /W. 

The book has the great merit of a simplicity that never wearies the 
reader's attention. Jt presents the newest U well as the old discoveries, 
and is free from the errors which mar most of the treatises on astronomy 
that are designed for non-professional use. Ordinary readers will appre- 
ciate the circumstance that no mathematical formulas are employed. * * * 
In each division of the work the history of discovery is made to BUb& 

the purpose of explanation. * * * Step by step the reader ia led toward the 
theories of Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton, and is shown why and how 
their hypotheses best explained the facts of observation, which have been 
already detailed. A great advantage is thereby gained over ordinary trea- 
tises of astronomy, which present the recent knowledge first, and either 
give the facts unsupported, or press their acceptance by means of the 
stern logic of geometry. In Professor Kewcomb's work the great truths 
grow slowly, and can be measured as they grow. — .V. P. Tribune. 

The author is a master of all the theories and lore of his beloved sci- 
ence, and he has at command the unrivalled instruments of the United 
States Naval Observatory at Washington. He is an unwearied investiga- 
tor and professional enthusiast (in the best sense of the word), and writes 
an English which all people can understand. Parade and pedantry are 
wholly absent from this work. — X. Y. Journal of Commerce. 

Any person of average intelligence can take this volume, and in a month 
or two become an intelligent observer of the worlds around us. — Christian 
Intelligencer, N. Y. 



NewcomVs Popular Astronomy, 



This is one of those books which deserve and arc sure to receive a hearty 
welcome: a full and accurate rfounU of the Bnbject treated, prepared and 
brought down to date by one who is a master <>( the Bcience, and at the 
same time a clear and rigorous writer. It is a hook which ought to be in 
the library of every intelligent person aa a Btandard authority, safely to be 
referred to on any topic within its scope; and yet it is not heavy or dull, 
but, for the most part, as readable and interesting as a work of fiction. 

* * * The work is neither abstruse and drv, nor, on the other hand, i- it 
puerile and fanciful, as sometimes happens when sotNMU attempt to popu- 
larise their favorite science-, and write down to what they conceive to he 
the level of the common intelligence. The plan is logical, the due propor- 
tions of different portions of the subject are observed, and the Btyle ifl 
clear, forcible, and sufficiently picturesque and stimulating to keep the 
attention without effort. — Professor Charles A. ToUNG, m f/„ Independent^ 
N. Y. 

It is only rarely that a great mathematical astronomer condescends to 
write books for the people; and if he does, in four cases out of five, what 
he writes is unintelligible to all but a very few. Investigators seldom have 
either the di-position or ability to communicate what they know to the 
world in general. To this rule, however, there arc happy exception- ; and 
among them must be counted Professor Kewcomb, whose Popular Astron- 
omy is undoubtedly the best work of its kind in the English language. 

It- arrangement is logical, its statements are accurate, it- reasonings dear, 
and simple, perspicuous, and sufficiently picturesque. Through- 

out the book it is everywhere evident that great care has been taken to 
:!id perfect truthfuli presentation: fact- are kept 

distinct from fancies, and theories and speculations stand lor just what 

ire — Sund S -, Philadelphia. 



Published by HARPER 4 BROTHERS, \ku Fork. 

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